Get Smart 8 - Max Smart Loses Control

by William Johnston

  In another year, as Johnston tells the story, he, with two acquaintances and one client, formed an advertising agency in Chicago. For certain mystic reasons, they named it Merchants Limited, after a train that ran between Boston and New York. The day after the agency was formed, the client came to his senses and pulled out. Agency disbanded.

  He was for two years the associate editor of The Lion, magazine of the International Association of the Lions Clubs.

  For the past nine years he has been a public relations account executive. At the moment he handles the Lionel trains account for Tex McCrary’s public relations agency.

  After Caligula, Johnston—who had amassed millions of fans yet little meaningful literary recognition—tired of writing and decided to become—

  —wait for it—

  —a bartender.

  Then living on Long Island, New York, he attended bartending school and graduated to find that he was considered too old to hire. His solution was to buy his own bar, which he did. It was called The Blind Pig; it was located in Massapequa, and he ran it very successfully until his retirement.