for some
constitutes the greatest charm of his work. In "The Lighted Match," even
more than in "The Key to Yesterday," is this artistic finish noticeable.
"The Lighted Match" is not only a bully good story, it is literature as
well.

[Illustration: P. G. Wodehouse]

PELHAM GRANVILLE WODEHOUSE

During the past year a phrase has been frequently heard among magazine
and book men in New York when the name of Pelham Granville Wodehouse has
been mentioned. This phrase is "the logical successor to O. Henry"--and
it is misleading. Any humorist who tried to follow in the tracks of O.
Henry would be merely an imitator and the task would be as unwise as
though O. Henry had cramped his own freedom in an effort to walk in the
footprints of Mark Twain or any other predecessor in the field of humor.

Wodehouse suggests O. Henry only in that he has suddenly come into
universal recognition as a remarkable humorist. He wields a pen which
commands an uncommon power of satire, without the suggestion of vitriol
or bitterness. His humor has a sparkle, effervescence and spontaneity
which has put him in an incredibly short time in the front rank of
writers, and since the materialistic barometer at least records the
opinion of the editors and since the editors are supposed to know, has
brought him into that envied coterie whose rate per word in the
magazines has soared skyward.

P. G. Wodehouse was born in Guildford, England, in 1881, and while still
an infant he accompanied his parents to Hong Kong, where the elder
Wodehouse was a judge. He is a cousin of the Earl of Kimberley. In his
school days he went in for cricket, football and boxing, and made for
himself a reputation in athletics.

For two years Mr. Wodehouse went into a London bank and observed the
passing parade from a high stool, but this was not quite in keeping with
his tastes, and we find him next publishing a column of humorous
paragraphs in the _London Globe_, under the head of "By the Way." Later
he assumed the editorship of this department, and many of his paragraphs
lived longer than the few hours' existence of most newspaper humor. Also
since all writers experimentally venture into the dramatic, he wrote
several vaudeville sketches which have had popular English productions.

Three years ago P. G. Wodehouse came to New York. He liked the American
field and wanted to see whether his humor would strike the American
fancy. It struck. Mr. Wodehouse had tried h