CONTENTS

I. [THE FROG AND THE PUDDLE]
II. [THE MAN WHO CAME BACK]
III. [WHAT SHE WORE]
IV. [A BUSH LEAGUE HERO]
V. [THE KITCHEN SIDE OF THE DOOR]
VI. [ONE OF THE OLD GIRLS]
VII. [MAYMEYS FROM CUBA]
VIII. [THE LEADING LADY]
IX. [THAT HOME-TOWN FEELING]
X. [THE HOMELY HEROINE]
XI. [SUN DRIED]
XII. [WHERE THE CAR TURNS AT 18TH]

BUTTERED SIDE DOWN

I

THE FROG AND THE PUDDLE

Any one who has ever written for the magazines (nobody could devise a more sweeping opening; it includes the iceman who does a humorous article on the subject of his troubles, and the neglected wife next door, who journalizes) knows that a story the scene of which is not New York is merely junk. Take Fifth Avenue as a framework, pad it out to five thousand words, and there you have the ideal short story.

Consequently I feel a certain timidity in confessing that I do not know Fifth Avenue from Hester Street when I see it, because I've never seen it. It has been said that from the latter to the former is a ten-year journey, from which I have gathered that they lie some miles apart. As for Forty-second Street, of which musical comedians carol, I know not if it be a fashionable shopping thoroughfare or a factory district.

A confession of this kind is not only good for the soul, but for the editor. It saves him the trouble of turning to page two.

This is a story of Chicago, which is a first cousin of New York, although the two are not on chummy terms. It is a story of that part of Chicago which lies east of Dearborn Avenue and south of Division Street, and which may be called the Nottingham curtain district.