uld be drawn for the kind of thing frequently, as
that these would sometimes be drawn either blank, or with the result of
a very indifferent run. To an eye of some expertness, indeed, a good
many of these pieces are, at best, the sort of thing that a clever
contributor would turn off to editorial order, when he looked into a
newspaper office between three and five, or ten and midnight. I confess
that I once burst out laughing when, having thought to myself on reading
one, "This is not much above a better written Paul-de-Kockery," I found
at the end something like a frank acknowledgment of the fact, _with the
name_. In fact, Maupassant was not good at the pure _grivoiserie_; his
contemporary M. Armand Silvestre (_v. inf._) did it much better. Touches
of tragedy, as has been said, save the situation sometimes, and at
others the supernatural element of dread (which was to culminate in _Le
Horla_, and finally to overpower the author himself) gives help; but the
zigzags of the line of artistic success are sharp and far too numerous.
For a short story proper and a "proper" short story, _L'Epave_, where an
inspector of marine insurance visits a wreck far out on the sands of the
Isle of Rhe, and, finding an Englishman and his daughter there, most
unprofessionally forgets that the tides come up rapidly in such places,
is nearly perfect. On the other hand, _Le Rosier de Mme. Husson_, one of
the longest, is almost worthless.

[Sidenote: Classes--stories of 1870-71.]

At one time I had designed--and to no small extent written--a running
survey of a large number of these stories as they turn up in the
volumes, most of which--the _Contes de la Becasse_ is the chief
exception--have no unity, and are merely "scoopings" of pieces enough to
fill three hundred pages or so. But it would have occupied far too much
space for its importance and interest. As a matter of fact, they are to
some extent classifiable, and so may be dealt with on a representative
system. There is the division of "La Revanche," which might have saved
some of our fools at home from mistaking the Prussian for anything but a
Prussian. _Boule de Suif_ heads this, of course; but _Mlle. Fifi_, which
is a sort of tragic _Boule de Suif_--the tragedy being, one is glad to
say, at the invaders' expense--is not far below it. _Deux Amis_, one of
the best, records how two harmless Parisian anglers, pursuing their
beloved sport too far, were shot for refusing to betray the passwor