a rather adverse effect on the trade and, as politely as he could, Harry asked the ex-pug not to bring the lion around any more. But the next day the pug was back with lion, lion dropped another load, drinkers disbursed, Harry again made request. The third day, same thing. Realizing it was do or die for poor Harry's business, this time when lion let go, I went over, picked up the pug, who had been a welterweight, carried him outside and threw him in the street. Then I came back and grabbed the lion's mane and hustled him out of here. Out on the sidewalk the lion gave me a look, but he went quietly.
"In a crazy way, that's what started me on A Farewell to Arms— figured if I was getting that aggressive with lions, time had come to put my juice into a book instead. All the other writers who were sort of in my mob and living in Paris then, had already written books about the war, and like the last girl on the block who hasn't been married, I felt my time to write a war book had come. But for years I had been telling these writers most of my good war stories and I discovered they had put them into their books. So when I finally got around to doing my war novel, I found that the only country left was Italy. I was safe there because few of them had been to Italy, and certainly none of them knew anything about the war there.
"I've always had that problem—other writers pinching my stuff. During World War II, I traveled around quite a bit with a writer I had known a long time. I talked things out with him, the way you would with a friend. One day over drinks I told him how I had figured out that the best air-raid alarm was the attitude of cattle in the field. 'I can watch a herd of cows,' I told him, 'and tell you long before you hear any sounds, that planes are approaching. The cattle stiffen; they stop grazing. They know.'
"A couple of days later I saw other correspondents congratulating my writer friend whom I had told about the cattle. I asked what it was all about. 'He wrote a wonderful dispatch for his paper on how cattle react to planes,' one guy told me. I investigated and found that my pal had been picking my brain for some time and writing a series of articles based on the information that I had intended using in my own dispatches. 'Listen, you bastard,' I said to this writer, 'if you steal another thing from me, I'll kill you.' Two days later he switched to the Pacific theater of operations.
"There was another 'name' writer who used to steal my short stories as fast as I could write them, change the names of the characters and the locales and sell them for more money than I got. But I found a way to stop him. I quit writing for two years and the son-of-a-bitch starved to death."
The entrance to Le Trou dans le Mur is on the Boulevard des Capucines across from the Cafe de la Paix, but true to its name, you can pass by it a half-dozen times without seeing it. Ernest wanted me to see how he had positioned himself at the back of this mirrored bolte— more celebrated in the Twenties than now—whenever vendettas were threatening him. "The day after The Sun Also Rises was published," Ernest said, "I got word that Harold Loeb, who was the Robert Cohn of the book, had announced that he would kill me on sight. I sent him a telegram to the effect that I would be here in The Hole in the Wall for three consecutive evenings so he'd have no trouble finding me. As you can see, I chose this joint because it is all mirrors, all four walls, and if you sit in this booth at the back you can see whoever comes in the door and all their moves. I waited out the three days but Harold didn't show. About a week later, I was eating dinner at Lipp's in Saint-Germain, which is also heavily mirrored, when I spotted Harold coming in. I went over and put out my hand and Harold started to shake hands before he remembered we were mortal enemies. He yanked his hand away and put it behind his back. I invited him to have a drink but he refused. 'Never,'
"In a crazy way, that's what started me on A Farewell to Arms— figured if I was getting that aggressive with lions, time had come to put my juice into a book instead. All the other writers who were sort of in my mob and living in Paris then, had already written books about the war, and like the last girl on the block who hasn't been married, I felt my time to write a war book had come. But for years I had been telling these writers most of my good war stories and I discovered they had put them into their books. So when I finally got around to doing my war novel, I found that the only country left was Italy. I was safe there because few of them had been to Italy, and certainly none of them knew anything about the war there.
"I've always had that problem—other writers pinching my stuff. During World War II, I traveled around quite a bit with a writer I had known a long time. I talked things out with him, the way you would with a friend. One day over drinks I told him how I had figured out that the best air-raid alarm was the attitude of cattle in the field. 'I can watch a herd of cows,' I told him, 'and tell you long before you hear any sounds, that planes are approaching. The cattle stiffen; they stop grazing. They know.'
"A couple of days later I saw other correspondents congratulating my writer friend whom I had told about the cattle. I asked what it was all about. 'He wrote a wonderful dispatch for his paper on how cattle react to planes,' one guy told me. I investigated and found that my pal had been picking my brain for some time and writing a series of articles based on the information that I had intended using in my own dispatches. 'Listen, you bastard,' I said to this writer, 'if you steal another thing from me, I'll kill you.' Two days later he switched to the Pacific theater of operations.
"There was another 'name' writer who used to steal my short stories as fast as I could write them, change the names of the characters and the locales and sell them for more money than I got. But I found a way to stop him. I quit writing for two years and the son-of-a-bitch starved to death."
The entrance to Le Trou dans le Mur is on the Boulevard des Capucines across from the Cafe de la Paix, but true to its name, you can pass by it a half-dozen times without seeing it. Ernest wanted me to see how he had positioned himself at the back of this mirrored bolte— more celebrated in the Twenties than now—whenever vendettas were threatening him. "The day after The Sun Also Rises was published," Ernest said, "I got word that Harold Loeb, who was the Robert Cohn of the book, had announced that he would kill me on sight. I sent him a telegram to the effect that I would be here in The Hole in the Wall for three consecutive evenings so he'd have no trouble finding me. As you can see, I chose this joint because it is all mirrors, all four walls, and if you sit in this booth at the back you can see whoever comes in the door and all their moves. I waited out the three days but Harold didn't show. About a week later, I was eating dinner at Lipp's in Saint-Germain, which is also heavily mirrored, when I spotted Harold coming in. I went over and put out my hand and Harold started to shake hands before he remembered we were mortal enemies. He yanked his hand away and put it behind his back. I invited him to have a drink but he refused. 'Never,'
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