The latter six months, however, marked a reaction, with a higher
percentage of values in November and December. Explanation of the low
level lies in the financial depression which forced a number of
editors to buy fewer stories, to buy cheaply, or to search their
vaults for remnant of purchases made in happier days. Improvement
began with the return to better financial conditions.

The several members of the Committee have seldom agreed on the
comparative excellence of stories, few being of sufficient superiority
in the opinion of the Committee as a whole to justify setting them
aside for future consideration. The following three dozen candidates,
more or less, average highest:

Addington, Sarah, Another Cactus Blooms (_Smart Set_, December).

Alexander, Elizabeth, Fifty-Two Weeks for Florette [Reprinted as by
Elizabeth Alexander Heermann.] (_Saturday Evening Post_, August 13).

Allen, Maryland, The Urge (_Everybody's_, September).

Arbuckle, Mary, Wasted (_Midland_, May).

Beer, Thomas, Mummery (_Saturday Evening Post_, July 30).

Burt, Maxwell Struthers, Buchanan Hears the Wind (_Harper's_, August).

Byrne, Donn, Reynardine (_McClure's_, May).

Chittenden, Gerald, The Victim of His Vision (_Scribner's_, May).