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to book storage, as was the entire fourth floor. The book storage areas were vertical honeycombs of horizontal bins in which the books were stacked, each bin containing a different volume, most of them paperbacks. The building was served by an ancient hydraulic elevator which was operated by a cable which ran through the cab itself and operated a hydraulic valve in the well; running the elevator was a novelty which appealed to me for awhile. The building was of heavy wooden frame construction with wooden floors and there was constant creaking going on as we wheeled dollys around carrying loads of books. The office area was simply a storage area without any bins in it and some antique desks and tables and chairs here and there. The bookkeeping was done at a long, high counter maybe fifteen feet long where Florence DeWolfe and her assistant, Miss Heffner, presided sitting on high stools. Nearby, was a long counter where the books were wrapped, weighed, and had stamps affixed for mailing in packages. My last chore of the day was to load a two-wheeled push—cart with these packages and wheel them through the street to the post office; I thoroughly hated this job, being ashamed of it, and I went the least conspicuous way possible in order to avoid, insofar as I could, the possibility of any of my acquaintances seeing me doing this demeaning task, about which I had a virtual phobia. My principal work was storing new books, just received from the printing department, in the proper bins, and gathering books to fill orders, as well as wrapping packages and other chores. I think they had a janitor who emptied the baskets, swept the floors, and such, since I can't recall ever doing any of that category of jobs.

As I've said, Mr. Bardeen was an old man. His daughter, Ethel, was the real guiding light of the business. She was middle-aged and quite unattractive, inclined to be a little distant but not unpleasantly so, and I think she also wrote some of their works. Florence DeWolfe was a friend of my mother, about 50, and a little guy, rather homely, taking after her heavy-drinking father (in looks only), but cute, wearing pince-nez which gave her a slightly annoyed expression, and wearing paper armguards; I knew her well and liked her. Her assistant, Miss Heffner, was quite a dish in some respects. She was in her early twenties and had a really pretty face were it not for the fact she had to wear rather heavy glasses and she rouged herself too heavily. She was built almost sensationally in all departments and she wore her clothes a bit tight so there was little left to imagine; furthermore, the rear view of her sitting up on the high stool in her tight skirt was something for the book. The other member of the third floor group was Mr. McGraw, short, bowlegged and powerful, who'd been with Bardeen's for many, many years and knew the warehousing operation and shipping routines to an eyelash. I was more like his assistant than anything else and he was a pleasant old boy to work for. However, although I worked for a publishing house, I'm afraid I learned little about publishing.