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him what all this was, the book publishing business. Outside of being quite a rake and quick-tempered, he was not too bad a fellow, and he loved both of us. He ended up by saying, “I'd like to get in on it, too,” He wanted to put up a lot of the money. And when I told him we didn't want it he was very hurt. We didn't need it. I said, “If Donald doesn't put the money in, I'll get it from somebody else.” I predicted, “This will be a gold mine.”

What about operating expenses? You had the $200,000.

We had the $200,000. Now, wait a minute. Two things happened. At the last minute Horace got tricky and demanded that we give him a contract as an adviser for five years at $5,000 a year. This was a last-minute thought. I think either Messner or Arthur Garfield Hayes put this into his head. He said, “You boys are going to need my advice.” Well, we needed his advice like a hole in the head. He had never paid any attention to the Modern Library anyway. But this became a fixture in his mind. He said that if we didn't put this in, the deal was off. So we had to pledge $5,000 a year for five years. This was adding a burden to us. And then we needed operating money, too. So my uncle loaned us 500 shares of Norfolk and Western Railroad, which at that time was selling at about $200 a share. Now, this didn't cost my uncle a penny. All he had to do was loan us the stock, and on that stock we borrowed $50,000 from the bank. That gave us our operating expenses. Of course we owed my uncle these 500 shares of stock, and we