Page "belles_lettres" Paragraph 1287

He went to the Hotel Mayflower and telegraphed Mencken.

Would he meet him in Baltimore in Drawing Room A, Car Three on the train leaving Washington at nine o'clock next morning??

They would go to New York together, where parties would be piled on weariness and on misery.

But not for long.

Both Alfred Harcourt and Donald Brace had written him enthusiastic praise of Elmer Gantry ( any changes could be made in proof, which was already coming from the printer ) and they had ordered 140,000 copies -- the largest first printing of any book in history.

But none of this could soothe the exacerbated nerves.

On New Year's Eve, Alfred Harcourt drove him up the Hudson to Bill Brown's Training Camp, a well-known establishment for the speedy if temporary rehabilitation of drunkards who could no longer help themselves.

But, in departing, Lewis begged Breasted that there be no liquor in the apartment at the Grosvenor on his return, and he took with him the first thirty galleys of Elmer Gantry.