Richard Caramel, who was one of the ushers, caused Anthony and Gloria
much distress in the last few weeks by continually stealing the rays of
their spot-light. "The Demon Lover" had been published in April, and it
interrupted the love affair as it may be said to have interrupted
everything its author came in contact with. It was a highly original,
rather overwritten piece of sustained description concerned with a Don
Juan of the New York slums. As Maury and Anthony had said before, as the
more hospitable critics were saying then, there was no writer in America
with such power to describe the atavistic and unsubtle reactions of that
section of society.
The book hesitated and then suddenly "went." Editions, small at first,
then larger, crowded each other week by week. A spokesman of the
Salvation Army denounced it as a cynical misrepresentation of all the
uplift taking place in the underworld. Clever press-agenting spread the
unfounded rumor that "Gypsy" Smith was beginning a libel suit because
one of the principal characters was a burlesque of himself. It was
barred from the public library of Burlington, Iowa, and a Mid-Western
columnist announced by innuendo that Richard Caramel was in a sanitarium
with delirium tremens.
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