I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to the editors of several magazines for permission to reprint the following stories in book form. “Carter” was originally published in Harpers Monthly Magazine under the title “The Mulatto.”

“Death and Old Man Murtrie” was printed in The New Republic; others were first brought out in Everybody's Magazine, Short Stories, Putnam's Magazine and the Saturday Evening Post. “The Penitent” was originally printed in The Pictorial Review, with the title “The Healer and the Penitent.” The plot of this story is taken from two poems, one by Browning and one by Owen Meredith. Happening to read these two poems, one after the other, I was struck by the fact that Owen Meredith had unwittingly written what was in effect a continuation of a situation invented by Browning; the plot of the one poem, telescoped into the plot of the other, made in effect a complete short story. I pasted the two situations together, so to speak, inventing an ending of my own, and had a short story which neither Browning nor Owen Meredith could claim as his-and which I scarcely have the nerve to claim as mine. And yet this story, taken piecemeal from the two poets, gave me more trouble than anything else I ever tried to write; it was all there, apparently; but to transpose the story into a modern American setting was a difficult job. It is my only essay in conscious plagiarism-I hate to call it plagiarism, but what else could one call it?—and I give you my word that it is easier to invent than to plagiarize.

The one-act play, “Words and Thoughts,” was written ten years ago-in 1911-and has been offered to every theatrical manager in America, and refused by them all. I still believe in it as a thing that could be acted with effect, and I am determined to get it read, even if I cannot get it produced. The fact that it has been going the rounds of theatrical managers for ten years is no indication that it has ever been read.

Don Marquis

New York