th
the gentleman involved to attend the next fancy-dress party to which
we are mutually invited, attired as the latter part of the camel--this
as a sort of atonement for being his historian.

MAY DAY.

This somewhat unpleasant tale, published as a novelette in the "Smart
Set" in July, 1920, relates a series of events which took place in the
spring of the previous year. Each of the three events made a great
impression upon me. In life they were unrelated, except by the general
hysteria of that spring which inaugurated the Age of Jazz, but in my
story I have tried, unsuccessfully I fear, to weave them into a
pattern--a pattern which would give the effect of those months in New
York as they appeared to at least one member of what was then the
younger generation.

PORCELAIN AND PINK.

"And do you write for any other magazines?" inquired the young lady.

"Oh, yes," I assured her. "I've had some stories and plays in the
'Smart Set,' for instance----"

The young lady shivered.

"The 'Smart Set'!" she exclaimed. "How can you? Why, they publish
stuff about girls in blue bathtubs, and silly things like that."

And I had the magnificent joy of telling her that she was referring to
"Porcelain and Pink," which had appeared there several months before.

FANTASIES

THE DIAMOND AS BIG AS THE RITZ.

These next stories are written in what, were I of imposing stature, I
should call my "second manner." "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz,"
which appeared last summer in the "Smart Set," was designed utterly
for my own amusement. I was in that familiar mood characterized by a
perfect craving for luxury, and the story began as an attempt to feed
that craving on imaginary foods.

One well-known critic has been pleased to like this extravaganza
better than anything I have written. Personally I prefer "The Offshore
Pirate." But, to tamper slightly with Lincoln: If you like this sort
of thing, this, possibly, is the sort of thing you'll like.

THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON.

This story was inspired by a remark of Mark Twain's to the effect that
it was a pity that the best part of life came at the beginning and the
worst part at the end. By trying the experiment upon only one man in a
perfectly normal world I have scarcely given his idea a fair trial.
Several weeks after completing it, I discovered an almost identical
plot in Samuel Butler's "Note-books."

The story was published in "Collier's" last summer and provo