Short Fiction

O’Roon
 A Ramble in Aphasia
 The Making of a New Yorker
 A Service of Love
 Psyche and the Pskyscraper
 A Cosmopolite in a Café
 The Girl and the Habit
 Vanity and Some Sables
 The Unknown Quantity
 Babes in the Jungle
 The Song and the Sergeant
 Man About Town
 Memoirs of a Yellow Dog
 Mammon and the Archer
 The Detective Detector
 “Little Speck in Garnered Fruit”
 The Shocks of Doom
 Extradited from Bohemia
 The Red Roses of Tonia
 Springtime à la Carte
 Between Rounds
 Tommy’s Burglar
 The Marry Month of May
 The Girl and the Graft
 The Call of the Tame
 According to Their Lights
 Roses, Ruses and Romance
 The Voice of the City
 Hostages to Momus

 I
 II
 III
 IV


 Sisters of the Golden Circle
 The Dog and the Playlet
 An Adjustment of Nature
 A Midsummer Knight’s Dream
 The Lost Blend
 An Unfinished Story
 Nemesis and the Candy Man
 The City of Dreadful Night
 The Skylight Room
 The Assessor of Success
 From Each According to His Ability
 The Poet and the Peasant
 A Bird of Bagdad
 The Plutonian Fire
 “The Guilty Party”
 The Count and the Wedding Guest
 The Last Leaf
 Elsie in New York
 The Clarion Call
 The Tale of a Tainted Tenner
 Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen
 Blind Man’s Holiday
 Telemachus, Friend
 A Double-Dyed Deceiver
 The Gift of the Magi
 The Duel
 The Thing’s the Play
 The Rubaiyat of a Scotch Highball
 The Buyer from Cactus City
 The Harbinger
 The Day Resurgent
 The Fool-Killer
 The Handbook of Hymen
 Brickdust Row
 Sociology in Serge and Straw
 “Girl”
 A Ruler of Men
 The Trimmed Lamp
 The Higher Abdication
 Calloway’s Code
 The Country of Elusion
 The Ethics of Pig
 Compliments of the Season
 Seats of the Haughty
 The Purple Dress
 Past One at Rooney’s
 The Indian Summer of Dry Valley Johnson
 The Man Higher Up
 Proof of the Pudding
 The Halberdier of the Little Rheinschloss
 The Caballero’s Way
 The Ransom of Red Chief
 The Fifth Wheel
 The World and the Door
 Phoebe
 “Next to Reading Matter”
 The Day We Celebrate
 The Octopus Marooned
 Jeff Peters as a Personal Magnet
 Modern Rural Sports
 The Chair of Philanthromathematics
 The Hand That Riles the World
 The Exact Science of Matrimony
 A Midsummer Masquerade
 Shearing the Wolf
 Innocents of Broadway
 Conscience in Art
 The Memento
 The Enchanted Profile
 A Night in New Arabia
 The Headhunter
 The Moment of Victory
 “The Rose of Dixie”
 Buried Treasure
 The Last of the Troubadours
 Strictly Business
 “What You Want”
 The Hiding of Black Bill
 Schools and Schools

 I
 II
 III
 IV
 V


 The Discounters of Money
 He Also Serves
 The Third Ingredient
 Thimble, Thimble
 Helping the Other Fellow

 II
 III
 IV


 Supply and Demand
 To Him Who Waits
 The Higher Pragmatism

 I
 II


 Bestseller

 I
 II
 III
 IV


 No Story
 A Poor Rule
 Rus in Urbe
 The Venturers
 A Municipal Report
 A Christmas Pi
 A Technical Error
 Let Me Feel Your Pulse
 The Friendly Call
 The Snow Man
 Law and Order
 An Unfinished Christmas Story
 The Unprofitable Servant
 A Fog in Santone
 The Dream
 Endnotes
 Colophon
 Uncopyright


Imprint

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Lord Oakhurst’s Curse

I
Lord Oakhurst lay dying in the oak chamber in the eastern wing of Oakhurst Castle. Through the open window in the calm of the summer evening, came the sweet fragrance of the early violets and budding trees, and to the dying man it seemed as if earth’s loveliness and beauty were never so apparent as on this bright June day, his last day of life.
His young wife, whom he loved with a devotion and strength that the presence of the king of terrors himself could not alter, moved about the apartment, weeping and sorrowful, sometimes arranging the sick man’s pillow and inquiring of him in low, mournful tones if anything could be done to give him comfort, and again, with stifled sobs, eating some chocolate caramels which she carried in the pocket of her apron. The servants went to and fro with that quiet and subdued tread which prevails in a house where death is an expected guest, and even the crash of broken china and shivered glass, which announced their approach, seemed to fall upon the ear with less violence and sound than usual.
Lord Oakhurst was thinking of days gone by, when he wooed and won his beautiful young wife, who was then but a charming and innocent girl. How clearly and minutely those scenes rose up at the call of his memory. He seemed to be standing once more beneath the old chestnut grove where they had plighted their troth in the twilight under the stars; while the rare fragrance of the June roses and the smell of supper came gently by on the breeze. There he had told her his love; how that his whole happiness and future joy lay in the hope that he might win her for a bride; that if she would trust her future to his care the devotedness of his lifetime should be hers,