Books: Wire the Money

THE PAT HOBBY STORIES (159 pp.)—F. Scott Fitzgerald—Scribner ($3.50).

Scott Fitzgerald wrote short stories with the speed of a tabloid rewrite man, and for the journeyman's unvarying reason: to satisfy a desperate and constant need for money. The legend is familiar; when dun notes piled too high during the bright, wild days with Zelda, Scott could lock himself in a room and come out next morning with a story salable at $3,500.

But by the late '30s, Fitzgerald was living on faltering nerve and occasional movie jobs. Then in 1939 he began what were to be the last of his short...