So Little Time

by John P. Marquand

  “Well, I don’t want him to develop me,” Jeffrey said.

  “But you’ll go this afternoon, won’t you?” Madge asked. “Sinclair called me up, and he wants you particularly. Jeffrey, please. You know what a good time we had at Happy Rocks.”

  “Sinclair always wants everyone particularly,” Jeffrey said.

  “But you know you like him,” Madge said.

  “All right,” Jeffrey said, “I like him. I didn’t say I didn’t like him.”

  Everybody always liked Sinclair and it seemed sometimes that everybody was under obligation to Sinclair. Madge patted him on the back and placed her cheek beside his.

  “Chin up, darling,” Madge said, “and before you go, you’d better shave.”

  29

  To the Publishers, God Bless Them

  When Jeffrey first came to New York, he thought that publishers were simple people, perhaps because he did not know much about them, and it had seemed to him that there were only a few old-line houses which had published all the books—such as Scribner’s and Harpers and Putnam’s—all with a long and dignified tradition. Now the canvas was broader—there were lots of newer, brighter publishers, many of them excellent, who had stepped out of nowhere, like a hardy mountain folk descending on the fat burghers of the plains. When Sinclair Merriwell came down from Yale he started with one of those old houses as an editor and author’s contact man, and he made up his mind, as soon as he began entertaining authors at the Yale Club, that he was going to be what he called “a bookman.” Sinclair had worked hard, and even when he slept, he must have dreamed about being a bookman. Besides having persistence, Sinclair had a way with authors. He was familiar with all their works, even with their bad ones, and in some way Sinclair could make every author he saw, even if he saw a dozen in a day, feel that at last here was a publisher who understood him, who had real faith in his genius and his future, who sympathized with just what this particular author was trying perhaps unconsciously to do, who loved and delighted in what he was trying to do, and who knew implicitly that this particular author was not quite understood where he was and was not quite being presented to his public as he should be (although of course he was being published by a fine old house, all the members of which were grand fellows and personal friends of Sinclair’s). When you came to think of it, it was not so difficult to make authors feel this way since nearly every author living knew very well that he was not being given a square deal and that the house which published him, as bookmen put it, had done absolutely nothing about promoting his last book, had hardly given him a line of advertising but had simply thrown the book out perfunctorily and let it sink or swim. Sinclair always understood very well just why these authors should feel this way about their publishers (although their publishers were grand fellows who did a perfectly swell job with certain authors).

  But there was one thing that Sinclair wanted to make perfectly clear at the start—he never, never wanted for a moment to take an author away from another publisher. Sinclair was not that sort of person, even though there was a good deal of cutthroat competition in publishing, and a great many friends of his, swell people in other ways, occasionally did just this type of thing. He could tell you what they had done to authors of his own, in those hard days when he and Ella had first established the Grimpian Press. If an author wanted to leave him, well, he could, and God bless him, but it was surprising how many of them came back and said they were sorry. That was one of the rewards of being a bookman. Publishers who shanghaied other publishers’ authors were not bookmen; and Sinclair wanted you to know that he was not that sort of fellow at all. He was glad to give his advice, as any friend might, but it was no part of his ethics to say anything destructive about any other house. He was frank to say that those houses had done a swell job for certain authors of theirs, certain authors—a much better job than he could have.

  Take Hemingway, or Faulkner, or Steinbeck, just to pick a few names out of the hat at random, and he was not making a pun—he did not mean Random House. Their publishers had done a swell job for them, not that anyone couldn’t have with Hemingway and Faulkner and Steinbeck. Actually he thought that their houses had done a better job for them than he could have, because they were more interested in Faulkner and Hemingway and Steinbeck than he would have been. Personally, just between us both, there was something about Hemingway and Faulkner and Steinbeck that left Sinclair just a little cold. He did not know why—no reason, and please don’t think it was sour grapes on his part, just because he had not discovered Hemingway or Faulkner or Steinbeck. He did not know why it was that Hemingway and Faulkner and Steinbeck left him just a little cold. But that was the fun of being a bookman. Sinclair never wanted to work for and with an author whose work did not give him a warm, tingling little glow, did not ring a little sort of bell in his mind, whose pages he did not understand intimately and did not wish in a little way that he had written himself. He knew that this idea was a little out of the ordinary line and perhaps was not good for business, or was it? Sinclair was not entirely sure and really he did not care. He did not care because there was more than dollars and cents in being a bookman.

  To put the whole thing in a nutshell, now that he and his author had finished their dessert, and their demitasses were on the table and Sinclair had signed the check (and had ticked it off to business expense, Grimpian House, tax exempt), he did not want an author on his list who did not give him that warm feeling of enthusiasm that would make Sinclair work for and with that author intimately. There was just one thing—and you could have a cigar, if you wanted one, Sinclair never smoked cigars, and some brandy too, though Sinclair never drank in the middle of the day—there was just one thought that Sinclair wanted to leave with you. He did not want to take any author away from any other house. On the other hand, if an author wanted to think it over and wanted to come to him and be one of the Grimpian crowd, that was another matter. That was the way Priscilla Jenks had come to him. She had just not been happy where she was, but he did think she was happy, really happy, at Grimpian, and all the cards were always on the table at Grimpian. And perhaps the best thing to do about this whole conversation (and it had been a lot of fun, just talking at random, and he didn’t mean Random House) would be more or less to forget it, because it had been all a little off the record. But if you wanted to think it over, and if you had any ideas later, Sinclair would be awfully glad to hear them, and why not come out to Happy Rocks sometime? Ella would love to have you, just to ramble through the country and to talk about books. And Walt Newcombe might be there, or Priss Jenks, or someone from the Saturday Review of Literature—it never hurt to meet a critic, did it? Someone worth while was always around at Happy Rocks.

  The publishing world was changing when Sinclair Merriwell got started on his own. Instead of Harpers, Scribner’s and Macmillan, there began to be Presses with fine, comfortable names, and also Houses—The Viking Press, The Heritage Press, and even the Press of the Woolly Whale; and Random House, and Courtright House, and Halcyon House. When Sinclair broke away from what he called being a wage slave and a yes man in that old-line publishing company where he was first employed (taking with him a few authors whom he had begged not to leave a place where they were comfortably established but who had insisted, though he didn’t know why), and when he had borrowed some money from some friends and had started his own enterprise, he did not know whether to call this new venture a press or a house. That was the year that Sinclair had married Ella Fredericks, who was doing a perfectly swell job in a literary agency, and to whom Sinclair always referred as “a perfectly swell gal.” It was Ella who thought of the name, the Grimpian Press. Jeffrey had never known what it meant exactly, and had never heard of it except as a mire in The Hound of the Baskervilles, but after all, this made no difference. He always thought of it as a good, sound name that reminded him of fine, sound talk and the burning logs in a bookman’s library and the sizzling, perhaps, of roasting apples. It was Ella who had made Happy Rocks
what it was. It was Ella, too, who did most about the cocktail parties in their penthouse in New York on Central Park South, although Sinclair did a lot to help. They both understood how important it was to entertain if you were a bookman and a bookwoman. That was part of the fun of it, knowing interesting people, having open house for everyone.

  Ella and Sinclair both thought it was only natural that authors, particularly their authors, should be interested in critics, and that the critics should know and like authors, particularly their authors. And both Ella and Sinclair were very hurt if they heard anyone say anything about making hay or log rolling, or anything like that. This was the last thing they ever had in mind when they brought interesting people together; besides, the idea of influencing a book critic—that is, a book critic who had any following at all—was perfectly absurd, wasn’t it? Because a critic was meant to say frankly what he thought and felt about an author’s work and that was what critics on our really fine book pages were for, wasn’t it? And criticism was an art in itself. Just to prove it was an art, Sinclair had published the collected critical essays of Samuel Fullerton Breaks, and of course you had followed the reviews of Samuel Fullerton Breaks. It made no difference to Sinclair that this work sold only two hundred and fifty copies. He was not publishing the works of Samuel Breaks for money. He published the works of Samuel Breaks because, in his opinion (and all a bookman could do was to stick to his opinion), these essays were some of the finest pieces of expository prose since the time of Dryden, Addison and Steele, particularly the chapter about Priscilla Jenks and the future. You must be sure to read that chapter about Priscilla Jenks, and if you hadn’t, Sinclair would send you a copy. It always made Sinclair and Ella, and it would have made any other good bookman, too, laugh to think that they or any other publishers could influence an honest book reviewer. That was not their idea when they asked critics to Happy Rocks or to their cocktail parties. Ella and Sinclair did not want anyone to think for a minute that they were doing business over gin and vermouth and canapés. They asked the critics because they liked them and some of their very best friends were critics and book page editors, not only in New York, but all over the country. That was the fun of being a bookman, and of keeping up with book fairs and book-and-author luncheons—you made so many friends.

  Furthermore, you might not know it, but a great many literary critics were rather wistful, lonely people who wanted to write books themselves, and who really wanted secretly to get to know the authors about whom they wrote. Even if a critic like Lewis Gannett or Charley Poore or Clifton Fadiman had treated something you wrote unkindly, it did not mean that he would not like you personally, if he could ever meet you. If a critic didn’t like an author’s work, Ella and Sinclair believed that this was really because the critic did not understand what the author was basically trying to do. In their experience it was surprising how often this all changed when a critic and an author had a little talk in the company of a lot of other people of kindred interests, over a little sherry or gin and bitters or whatever it was that old Sam, whom Sinclair always had over from the Paxton Club on such occasions, might be passing. Now, certainly this was not hay making or log rolling or anything like that. They had always found that reviewers and authors, no matter how self-conscious and silly they might have been at first, always ended up by having a good time together, and if there was any trouble, Ella could make them have a good time, and that was what cocktail parties were for, wasn’t it?

  Furthermore, it was silly, really silly, when someone had written a really good book that might in the end be a great book, someday, not to give him a little encouragement to go on. It did not matter a fig, that was what Ella said, a fig, whether the Grimpian Press had mothered (or was it fathered?) that book or not. They were just as glad to give a party to an author from Scribner’s or Harcourt Brace, or anywhere, if he had written a book that made Ella and Sinclair feel warm inside. When one of their authors, like Walter Newcombe or Priscilla Jenks, had done something that was definitely important, and had made a real creative contribution to our time, it was only fair to them to set a little social punctuation mark upon it. It was only a kindness to other people to let them meet and talk to authors like Walter Newcombe and Priscilla Jenks.

  And Ella and Sinclair did not want to have those parties too booky either—they made a real study of their cocktail lists, so that they should represent a cross section of thoughtful, intelligent people who kept abreast of the new books. This did not mean only literary agents, or only their friends from publishing houses—and you’d be surprised how many of their very best friends came from rival publishing houses—or only buyers from book departments, or bookstore managers, or only authors or only critics. They liked to have artists, too, who were doing things in other media, such as painters and sculptors and composers. That was what they meant by not wanting to have their parties too booky or provincial, too printer’s inksy-winksy, as Ella put it.

  What they wanted, they told Jeffrey, was to have an invitation to their cocktail parties mean that you were someone interesting and worth while and to guarantee in return that you would meet interesting and worth-while people there. And that was the sort of cocktail party that they were giving for Priscilla Jenks. They wanted Jeffrey, not for what he did, but for what he was, and they hoped that Jeff could have a few minutes with Priss, because Sinclair had a perfectly crazy idea that this new novel of Priss’s—the finest thing she had ever done—had the makings of a play somewhere inside it, and if it did, Sinclair—and so did Ella—knew that Jeff Wilson was the man to nose it out.

  Madge had on her mink coat and her cheeks were pink from the cold air outside. The elevator was overcrowded and Jeffrey took off his hat and held it carefully against his chest. Everyone in the elevator was obviously going up to the Merriwells’, except a fat lady with a small Cairn terrier, who got off at the fourth floor by ploughing a path through the interesting people. None of the occupants of the elevator spoke. They simply examined each other guardedly. Jeffrey felt Madge nudge him gently in the ribs. He was afraid she was going to whisper about some important figure in the elevator, but instead of whispering, she looked at Jeffrey meaningly and then at a tall man in the far corner. Jeffrey followed her glance. Madge looked at him more meaningly and her lips moved noiselessly. When the elevator door finally opened, the first impact was a wave of sound combined with an aroma of spilled alcohol and cigarette smoke, like every other cocktail party. From the living room down the hall, voices rose like the clamor in the Paris Bourse, but the arrangements went like clockwork because Ella and Sinclair understood cocktail parties. Almost the instant they were out of the elevator, a hatchet-faced woman took Jeffrey’s coat and hat and another took Madge’s mink coat and Madge told her please to be careful when she put it in the bedroom and not get it mixed up with somebody else’s because that had happened once and Madge had never got her coat back, never.

  “Jeffrey,” Madge said, “that was Henry Bernstein.”

  “Who?” Jeffrey asked. Even in the hall he had to raise his voice.

  “The man in the elevator,” Madge said, “wasn’t it Henry Bernstein?”

  “No,” Jeffrey said, “it wasn’t, Madge.”

  “The other man,” Madge asked, “who was he?”

  “Which other man?” Jeffrey asked.

  “The man with that faded blond woman in the silver fox,” Madge said, “the one with gray hair and bushy eyebrows. I must have seen his picture somewhere.”

  “Oh, that man,” Jeffrey said. “That was John L. Lewis, and the lady with the dog who got off on the fourth floor was a house detective.”

  “That isn’t funny,” Madge said. “I know I’ve seen him somewhere.”

  They began pushing their way into the living room. Jeffrey knew that when he had a drink he might feel a little better. Everyone was talking, everyone was having a wonderful time, and Jeffrey began to feel the way Madge must have about the faces. They all did look as though he had seen them somewhere,
and as though they expected to be recognized and to be photographed suddenly—but yet, Jeffrey could not place any of them. He was right however, about the photograph. As he and Madge entered, a blinding flash of light made him jump. A sallow young man with a candid camera was weaving his way between two Filipinos in white coats who were passing trays covered with olives and elastic-looking red caviar on crackers. It reminded Jeffrey that Sinclair always liked to have candid photographs of those parties. He and Ella mounted them in books with the date and a little description of the occasion—And how could you tell? Town and Country or someone might like to use them—it was a way of helping Town and Country. And if they didn’t, it was a lot of fun to look over them in the scrapbooks at Happy Rocks.

  “Excuse me, sir,” the young man with the camera said, “could I have your name, please, sir?”

  “Yes,” Jeffrey told him, “Secretary of the Navy Stimson.”

  The young man looked hurt, and Madge pulled at Jeffrey’s arm.

  “Jeff,” she began, “that isn’t funny.” Then Madge began to laugh, and he liked everything better. “Suppose we come out in Town and Country,” Madge said, “as Secretary and Mrs. Stimson of the Navy. Jeff, don’t you know anybody? Don’t you know anybody at all?”

  “No,” Jeffrey said, “the only thing to do is to get into the spirit of it.”

  Jeffrey had a feeling that everyone else at the party was like him, nobody in particular, waiting for the appearance of someone who counted.

  “Oh,” Madge said, “there’s Ella.”

  Ella was standing in the center of the room with a stocky, dark man who wore a thin ribbon in his coat lapel. The man was looking filmily from right to left, and Ella was shouting at him above the voices. She was just what Sinclair had called her, “a perfectly swell gal,” and Ella was a big gal, too, five feet ten and a half, and more than that with high heels—a big gal with yellow hair, in a blue dress, known technically as a cocktail dress, with a heavy necklace and a bracelet, known as costume jewelry.