Produced by Suzanne Lybarger, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net THE BEST SHORT STORIES OF 1917 AND THE YEARBOOK OF THE AMERICAN SHORT STORY EDITED BY EDWARD J. O'BRIEN EDITOR OF "THE BEST SHORT STORIES OF 1915," "THE BEST SHORT STORIES OF 1916," ETC. [Illustration: SCIRE QVOD SCIENDVM] BOSTON SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1918, by The Boston Transcript Company Copyright, 1917, by The Pictorial Review Company, The Century Company, Charles Scribner's Sons, The Curtis Publishing Company, Harper & Brothers, The Metropolitan Magazine Company, The Atlantic Monthly Company, The Crowell Publishing Company, The International Magazine Company, The Pagan Publishing Company, The Stratford Journal, and The Boston Transcript Company Copyright, 1918, by Edwina Stanton Babcock, Thomas Beer, Maxwell Struthers Burt, Francis Buzzell, Irvin S. Cobb, Charles Caldwell Dobie, H. G. Dwight, Edna Ferber, Katharine Fullerton Gerould, Susan Glaspell Cook, Frederick Stuart Greene, Richard Matthews Hallet, Fannie Hurst, Fanny Kemble Costello, Burton Kline, Vincent O'Sullivan, Lawrence Perry, Mary Brecht Pulver, Wilbur Daniel Steele, and Mary Synon Copyright, 1918, by Edward J. O'Brien Copyright, 1918, by Small, Maynard & Company, Inc. Fourth printing, January, 1919 Fifth printing, September, 1919 Sixth printing, August, 1920 Seventh printing, August, 1921 TO WILBUR DANIEL STEELE BY WAY OF ACKNOWLEDGMENT Grateful acknowledgment for permission to include the stories and other material in this volume is made to the following authors, editors, publishers, and copyright holders: