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Three or four other publishers followed me and let them come in. It looked for a time that they would unionize the whole publishing... But then, why not? There's no reason why workers in publishing houses shouldn't be unionized if they want to be. Our own people got disgusted with this one, however, and one by one dropped out. Finally, some years later--I said nine but it was probably only five or six--they, by an overwhelming vote, threw the union out; but I had given them a very favorable contract because I took Helen Thompson out to dinner the very night I met her--and fell madly in love with her.

Well, were you engaged to her?

That was the rumor because we were together quite a lot. We became quite a favorite topic around our set in New York because, first of all, as I told you, she was beautiful. Second of all, everybody knew her family. Third of all, they were amused by this combination of the young girl union organizer and Bennett Cerf.

Then Woollcott demanded to meet Helen Thompson. All of my friends demanded the same. They had all heard about her. I agreed to proudly produce her.

Beatrice and George Kaufman gave a big party one night just to have the whole crew meet Helen Thompson. When I walked in with Helen--she looked as though she had just come in out of the rain. Though she was beautiful, she didn't care at all how she dressed or how she made-up. She was sloppy