d to me that I found the authentic voice of "O. Henry" speaking.
Mr. Lewis has been publishing a series of these "Tales While You Wait"
in Reedy's Mirror during the past few months, and I should much prefer
them to those of Jack Lait for the complete success with which he has
achieved his aims. Imitation of "O. Henry" has been the curse of
American story-telling for the past ten years, because "O. Henry" is
practically inimitable. Mr. Lewis is not an imitator, but he may well
prove before very long to be "O. Henry's" successor. In the words of
Padna Dan and Micus Pat, "Here's the chance for some one to make a
discovery."

43. WIDOW LA RUE by _Edgar Lee Masters_ (Reedy's Mirror). This is the
best short story in verse that the year has produced, and as literature
it realizes in my belief even greater imaginative fulfilment than "Spoon
River Anthology." I should have most certainly wished to include it in
"The Best Short Stories of 1917" had it been in prose, and it adds one
more unforgettable legend to our folk imagination.

44. THE UNDERSTUDY by _Johnson Morton_ (Harper's Magazine) is an ironic
character study developed with much finesse in the tradition of Henry
James. Its defect is a certain conventional atmosphere which demands an
artificial attitude on the part of the reader. Its admirable distinction
is its faithful rendering of a personality not unlike the "Tante" of
Anne Douglas Sedgwick, if a novel portrait and a short story portrait
may fittingly be compared. If the portraiture is unpleasant, it is at
any rate rendered with incisive kindliness.

45. THE HEART OF LIFE by _Meredith Nicholson_ (Scribner's Magazine). Mr.
Nicholson has treated an old theme freshly in "The Heart of Life" and
discovered in it new values of contrasting character. Among his short
stories it stands out as notably as "A Hoosier Chronicle" among his
novels. It is in such work as this that Mr. Nicholson justifies his
calling, and it is by them that he has most hope of remembrance in
American literature.

46. MURDER? by _Seumas O'Brien_ (The Illustrated Sunday Magazine). With
something of Hardy's stark rendering of atmosphere, Mr. O'Brien has
portrayed a grim situation unforgettably. Woven out of the simplest
elements, and with an entire lack of literary sophistication, his story
is fairly comparable to the work of Daniel Corkery, whose volume, "A
Munster Twilight," has interested me more than any other volume of short
stories published i