again from the gentlemen

In a book of 50 Great Short Stories edited by Martin Crane, the 41^st one is the best so far, and they were all good.  H. L. Mencken’s The Girl from Red Lion P.A. is the story I’m recommending.  It may also be available in the book Newspaper Days, by Mencken.  As to plot and storyline it might best be described as a romance of innocence.  If you were a young girl, how would you go about actively pursuing perdition in the big city?  Ah, but as a reading experience, it is a feast of cynicism, sarcasm, and irony—textbook examples—delightfully piquant .  The characters are Runyonesque without the vernacular, the perspective Twain without the exaggeration, and the story might be human interest journalism at its most interesting. 

The Gentlemen’s Auxillary