s first collection of short fiction, a form through which he had gained notoriety in newspapers and magazines. The familiar themes of aspiration and social satire already permeate his writing: in «Bernice Bobs Her Hair» the fashionable Marjorie attempts to turn her dowdy cousin into a debutante, before betraying her out of jealousy, while «The Ice Palace» features a Southern belle whose marriage to a Northerner finds her confronted with a cultural clash between tradition and modernity. Also containing «The Offshore Pirate», «Head and Shoulders», «The Cut-Glass Bowl», «Benediction», «Dalyrimple Goes Wrong» and «The Four Fists».