Through these pages pass con men, an opinionated small-town barber, a nurse who chatters on and on—much to the chagrin of her charges—baseball players and boxers. Published in "The Saturday Evening Post, Collier's", and "Vanity Fair", Lardner enjoyed great success and was heralded as a singular talent by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hemingway, H.L. Mencken, and Virginia Woolf.