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swaggering to the Savoy desk and said, “I am John Emerson. Here's my wife, Anita Loos and my young friend, Bennett Cerf.” He said, “We're to occupy Mr. Kohn's suite.”

So they started looking up papers, but the clerk, of course, could find no record. Emerson went into a rage and demanded the manager. The manager came bustling forward rubbing his hands on his frock coat, and Emerson bawled the hell out of him. He said, “We've arrived from America tired from our journey and nothing is ready for us. Mr. Kahn will hear about this.” And it ended up with the manager apologizing abjectly and taking us up to Otto Kahn's suite.

Did Otto Kahn arrive?

He never found out about it. He was away in Scotland shooting grouse. So we went into this suite, which consisted of a huge living room, two great big bedrooms and bath for each. I got one of the bedrooms, the Emersons had the other, in this great big suite overlooking the Thames. You could see part of the Tower of London on one side and Parliament on the other, and you could see Westminster Abbey and of course the Thames and the boats going under Waterloo Bridge.

What did Dick Simon think of all this?

He was in his little hideaway. We were going to meet for dinner that night. We'd arranged to have dinner together at Simpson's.