reprint "T.B.," first published in _The Saturday Evening Post_. Acknowledgments are specially due to _The Boston Evening Transcript_ for permission to reprint the large body of material previously published in the columns of that paper. I wish to specially express my gratitude to the following who have materially assisted by their efforts in making this year-book of American fiction possible and more complete: Mr. A.A. Boyden, Mr. Bruce Barton, Mr. Henry A. Bellows, Professor Albert Frederick Wilson, Mr. Barry Benefield, Mr. Douglas Z. Doty, Mr. Karl Edwin Harriman, Mr. Edward Frank Allen, Mr. Carl Hovey, Miss Sonya Levien, Mr. William Griffith, Mr. Arthur T. Vance, Mr. Mitchell Kennerley, Mr. H.M. Greene, Mr. Robert Bridges, Mr. J.B. Carrington, Mr. Hayden Carruth, Mr. Frederic A. Duneka, Mr. Henry J. Forman, Mr. Gilman Hall, Mr. Charles Hanson Towne, Miss Margaret Anderson, Mr. Charles Edison, Mr. Guido Bruno, Mr. William Marion Reedy, Mr. John T. Frederick, Mr. Burton Kline, Miss Dorothea Lawrance Mann, Miss Katharine Butler, Mr. Thomas H. Uzzell, Mr. Virgil Jordan, Mrs. Elsie Singmaster Lewars, Mr. Alfred A. Knopf, Miss Hilda Baker, Mr. William Stanley Braithwaite, and Mr. Francis J. Hannigan, in charge of the Periodical Department of the Boston Public Library. To Mr. Hannigan my special gratitude is due. My ability to find certain back numbers of periodicals which the publishers were unable to supply is due to his personal helpfulness and unsparing pains. In fact, his assistance at certain times almost amounted to collaboration. I shall be grateful to my readers for corrections and particularly for suggestions leading to the wider usefulness of this annual volume. In particular, I shall welcome the receipt from authors and publishers, of stories published during 1916 which have qualities of distinction, and yet are not printed in periodicals falling under my regular notice. For such assistance I shall make due and grateful acknowledgment in next year's annual. If I have been guilty of any omissions in these acknowledgments, it is quite unintentional, and I trust that I shall be absolved for my good intentions. E.J.O. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION. By the Editor THE WATER-HOLE. By Maxwell Struthers Burt (From _Scribner's Magazine_) THE WAKE. By Donn Byrne (From _Harper's Magazine_) CHAUTONVILLE. By Will Levington Comfort (From _The Masses_) LA DERNIÈRE MOBILISATION. By W.A. Dwiggins (From _The Fabulist_) THE CITIZEN. By James Francis Dwyer (From _Collier's Weekly_) WHOSE DOG--? By Frances Gregg (From _The Forum_) LIFE. By Ben Hecht (From _The Little Review_) T.B. By Fannie Hurst (From _The Saturday Evening Post_) MR. EBERDEEN'S HOUSE. By Arthur Johnson (From _The Century_) VENGEANCE IS MINE. By Virgil Jordan (From _Everybody's Magazine_)