holds him until he, too, is suffused, convinced.

... The Committee were not insensible to style. But expert phrasing,
glowing appreciation of words and exquisite sense of values, the texture
of the story fabric--all dropped into the abyss of the unimportant after
the material they incorporated had been judged. No man brings home
beefsteak in silk or sells figs as thistles.

The Committee accepted style as the fit medium for conveying the
matter....

Since the Committee confess to catholicity of taste, the chosen stories
reveal predilection for no one type. They like detective stories, and
particularly those of Melville Davisson Post. A follower of the founder
of this school of fiction, he has none the less advanced beyond his
master and has discovered other ways than those of the Rue Morgue. "Five
Thousand Dollars Reward" in its brisk action, strong suspense, and
humorous denouement carries on the technique so neatly achieved in "The
Doomdorf Mystery" and other tales about Uncle Abner.

The Committee value, also, the story about animals: universal interest
in puzzles, in the science of ratiocination, is not more pronounced than
the interest in rationalizing the brute. "The Mottled Slayer" and "The
Elephant Remembers" offer sympathetic studies of struggles in the animal
world. Mr. Marshall's white elephant will linger as a memory, even as
his ghost remains, longer than the sagacious play-fellow of Mr.
Gilbert's little Indian; but nobody can forget the battle the latter
fought with the python.

For stories about the home the Committee have a weakness: Miss Ferber's