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on the Aquitania. Ernst and I were down at the dock when that boat landed. It was one of the hottest days in the history of New York. The temperature of that dock must have been 120 degrees. The docks were always very hot, anyway, in the middle of summer. And the customs people wanted only one thing: to get returning passengers off that dock and get the hell out themselves. So they wouldn't open anything. They were stamping everything, ordering “Get out; go on out.” And when our man came out with his suitcase, the customs inspector started to stamp it without opening it. Ernst and I, frantic, said, “We insist that you open that bag and search it.” It looked as though we were two absolute lunatics. He said, “It's too hot.” We said, “We insist. We think there's something in there that's contraband, and we insist that it be searched.”

So furiously the fellow had to open that suitcase. And we said, “Aha!" As we produced our copy of Ulysses. The customs man said, “Oh, for God's sake, everybody brings in that book. We don't pay any attention to that. Everybody sneaks in a copy. That's par for the course.”

But we persisted, “We demand that you seize this book.”

So after a little argument he called over the chief customs inspector at the dock and said, “You know, these two fellows want me to seize this book.”

So then the chief started to argue with us. He said this was ridiculous--but we had our way. We were right legally. We made them seize this book. So when the case came up, that was the copy in the case because that was the copy that had been seized by the government.