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had a bath in five years. You could smell Mr. Lewis four blocks away. Once he got into your office, you couldn't get him out. He'd just talk you deaf, dumb and blind. He was rather an amusing old codger, but he was death when he got into the office.

Why did he come to you?

We used him for a couple of anthologies.

For the Modern Library.

Yes. He did an anthology I think of sea stories for us or detective stories. He was ready for anything. There was another man at that time named Ernest Boyd who was much more erudite who could be depended on to do an introduction to anything, too. His wife, Madeline Boyd, a big fat woman, was an agent, and she had one client who turned out very well--a boy named Thomas Wolfe, It was Madeline Boyd who persuaded Max Perkins of Scribner's to take Look Homeward, Angel. That was her great claim to fame. The Boyds would come to cocktail parties. They probably hadn't eaten for a couple of days, and they'd make a dive for the food. Whenever you'd go to a cocktail party the first thing that met your eyes was the Boyds mopping up the food. Boyd, as I say, could do an introduction overnight to anything if you just paid him enough. One day a drunken author--I've forgotten who it was--gave him an insult