Meanwhile certain bills, embodying the statutory changes he wanted, should be drafted forthwith by Executive Counsel George Wallace, so that he--Huey--could check their wording in advance, and make any amendments he deemed necessary. This must be done with secrecy--not the sort of puerile intrigue with which his opponents had assembled their hotel conference, but under a tight cloak of concealment, so as to catch the opposition unawares. The gerrymander that would retire Judge Pavy to private life was to be the first measure introduced and passed, becoming House Bill Number One and later Act Number One. The date of the state’s congressional primaries was also to be moved up from September 1936 to January. These should be held at the same time as the primaries for governor and other elective state officers. And there was another measure, one still in the planning stage, the details of which he would give later; something to take the sting out of Roosevelt’s punitive dispensation of federal patronage in Louisiana. Having disposed of these matters, Long left Washington for New York with three of his most trusted bodyguards--Murphy Roden, Paul Voitier, and Theophile Landry. All he had in mind at the moment was a day or two of relaxation. August 30 was his birthday. He would be forty-two years old. This in itself called for some sort of celebration. Besides, in view of the busy weeks ahead--the Labor Day speech in Oklahoma on September 2, the special session of the legislature, the need to rush _My First Days in the White House_ into print, the fall and winter campaign for state offices, the presidential campaign to follow--this might well be, for no one knew how long, his last opportunity for casual diversion. “We flew to New York from Washington,” Captain Landry recalls, “and went straight to the New Yorker Hotel, where they always put the Senator in a suite on the thirty-second floor. We got there on August 29. I remember that because the next day, a Friday, was his birthday, and Ralph Hitz, the owner of the hotel, sent up a big birthday cake. Lila Lee, a New Orleans girl who was vocalist for Nick Lucas’ band that was playing the New Yorker’s supper room, came up to the suite with the cake to sing Happy-birthday-dear-Huey. After the cake had been cut and we all had a taste of it, he gave the rest to Miss Lee. “About that time Lou Irwin came up to take us out to dinner. I think the Senator had talked to him on the phone about finding someone to publish his book, and that Lou had said this was out of his line, since he was a theatrical agent, but he would inquire around and see what could be done. Earle Christenberry wasn’t with us. He had remained in Washington to gather up all the things the Senator might need in Louisiana, papers and so on, and he was going to take his time driving home with them while we went on to Oklahoma City.