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The lawyer that Horace sent for was very famous. He was Arthur Garfield Hayes, a great civil rights lawyer and a very fine man. Liveright also summoned his adviser and his confidant, Mr. Julian Messner, his oldest friend. Julian was the head of the Liveright sales department, a very fine man, who absolutely worshipped Horace. Liveright almost destroyed Messner's life, because he used Messner as sort of an office boy, and Messner was too good a man for that. It was another one of these Boswell relationships. Liveright attracted people that way. Well, when Arthur Garfield Hayes and Messner heard that Horace was going to sell me the Modern Library, they had a fit, an absolute fit. They said, “You idiot. This is the backbone of Boni and Liveright. This is one of the great properties in the publishing business. Why in God's name do you want to sell it?”

Liveright reminded them sharply, “I'm the owner of this business.” He was by this time reasonably drunk. He said, “This will get me out of the hole I'm in. As a matter of fact, Macmillan are about to start a competing new series and how can I hold my own with a great big firm like Macmillan? They'll put the Modern Library out of business in two years. I'm selling at the top. Bennett knows this. He's taking a chance. I've warned him about this.” He had. I said, “Nonsense. Macmillan's a stuffy old firm. We can beat them. We just have to concentrate on our own series. We've got a big headstart of them.”

Liveright added, “Anyway, I've given Bennett my word. I don't break my word.”