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Well, I know at the beginning you hadn't. For how long did that last?

Oh, about two months until people knew we were in business ourselves. Then the orders began coming to the Modern Library, not to Liveright. You see, for a while, until the country found out about it, the old bookstores kept sending their orders to Liveright. Well, that soon began to dwindle away and the orders began coming to us. Within two months there was just an occasional order, which they would send over to us. But a couple of things happened on 45th Street, which is now part of the jewelry district--the building is still there. I remember somebody came in one day and sold us a wine-making machine. Those were the days of prohibition, you know. Oh, you never saw such equipment in your life--bottles of grape juice and what-not with pipes and rubber hoses and stuff. And in three days or a week this was touted to turn into wonderful wine. We put it into the office on Friday and went away for the week-end, and while we were away--it was very hot--the whole damn thing exploded. We came in Monday morning and the office was absolutely covered with grape juice--all over the walls, all over the ceiling. Oh, how we laughed over that.

Then there was another great adventure. There was a man named Alfred Lewis French--an old campaigner who was one of these anthologists. He would anthologize anything. If you wanted a book of sea stories, he would find them. He lived at some flop house down around the Village. I don't think he'd