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great idea. Unfortunately, Sam Rosenman heard about this. He said, “You think you're going to turn the White House into a publicity stunt for Random House. You are crazy.” He took the set off. He said to the President, “What are you thinking of? You can't do that.” He marched off with the set, the President and I looking after him very ruefully; but we knew he was right. Neither of us said a word.

But then I said, “Mr. President, the advance sale has been quite disappointing I must tell you.” Roosevelt said, “Well. How many have you sold in Washington?" We had sold about three hundred sets in Washington. This was the day before publication. The President took an envelope out of his pocket and began figuring on the back of it. I waited for a minute or two. As I told you, I'm not very patient. I finally asked him, “What are you doing there, Mr. President?” He said, “Well, if you've sold three hundred odd sets in Washington--there are 900,000 people in Washington and there are 180,000,000 people in the United States--so if you've sold three hundred sets to 900,000...” He was figuring out how many we should sell then to 180,000,000 people. I said, “Mr. President, you must be kidding. In Washington all of the embassies are here and all the diplomats and all the people interested in politics and the politicians, so of course you'll sell plenty of sets in Washington. As for the rest of the country, why we haven't sold a book in Mississippi in three years.” Roosevelt thought that that was so funny that he told the press what I had said. It came out in the