The New Yorker was launched (in 1925) by Harold Ross on a shoestring budget. Indeed, so uncertain were the magazine's finances that even basic equipment was in short supply. One day, Ross berated Dorothy Parker for her failure to come in to the office to work on a piece which was overdue. Fortunately Parker had a handy excuse: "Someone else," she said, "was using the pencil."
["He and I had an office so tiny," Parker remarked on another occasion, "that an inch smaller and it would have been adultery."]
[The name of Procrastinators Club of America's flagship publication? "Last Month's Newsletter."]
Sources
C. Holmes, The Clocks of Columbus
