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sold for $45 a copy. This was still the end of 1927. Now again the Kent Candide has become almost unobtainable. It's a beautiful book.

Did you give Rockwell Kent an advance?

Oh, of course.

How much--do you remember?

I don't remember. It was handsome. Rockwell didn't come cheap. He was at the top of his popularity, and he always knew his own value. At this point we asked Elmer Adler to become a partner of Random House. He agreed.

Did he put any money in?

We didn't need any money.

And he did all the printing then.

Well, he did Candide. Then when the whole thing began to mushroom, Elmer didn't cotton to trade publishing, so we bought him out. He was a very difficult partner anyway--very querulous and dictatorial, and he wanted to do everything his way, and when we wanted to have other printers do books, Elmer was very jealous.