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smiled that wonderful smile of his and said, “I think so too, Miss Phyllis. Every time I read that book, I laugh and I laugh.”

That was the time too that he told me about Albert Erskine, who became his editor after Saxe Commins died. Erskine is John O'Hara's editor, and Jim Michener's editor, too. Faulkner said, “You know, I think Albert Erskine is the best book editor alive today.” I said, “Golly, Bill, coming from William Faulkner that's quite an encomium. Have you told Albert?" He paused for a minute and admitted, “No, I haven't. Bennett, when I've got a horse that's running good, I don't stop him to give him a piece of sugar.”

Very good. But you said that there was very little editing done on Faulkner.

Yes, but he made little mistakes in...

Spelling or...

Oh, spelling--we corrected that. There weren't so many. But he did make mistakes in dates. He didn't always remember when things happened.

The funniest thing was when we decided to do the Snopes trilogy as a set. You know, The Hamlet, The Mansion, and The Town--the three separate books all about the Snopes family. When we started to put the three together, Albert