The Fifth Wheel - A Novel

As part of an online project on short stories, East of the Web presents the full text of "The Fifth Wheel." This short story was written by the American author William Sydney Porter (1862-1910), whose pseudonym was O. Henry. 

Olive Higgins Prouty was an American novelist and poet, best known for her 1922 novel Stella Dallas and her pioneering consideration of psychotherapy in her 1941 novel Now, Voyager.