Note for Bienville and Mycroft H.. There are many compilations of Runyon stories, but the best editions were published many years ago under the Picador label. Picador put out two volumes called ‘On Broadway’ and ‘From First To Last’, which containined almost all the stories Runyon ever wrote. And the cover art for each volume was superb. Whatever volume or compilation you buy, it must contain a story called ‘The Idyll Of Miss Sarah Brown’, and I suggest you start with that. It’s the story on which the Guys And Dolls musical / movie was based, and it’s one of the finest short stories ever written.
Ianzin, thank you very much for the information. (I would have tried to phrase the “thank you” in Runyonese, but not having read the stuff, I’m sure I’d mangle it horribly. Maybe after I read some stories…)
I must remark with great alacrity and upraisings of the heart that this gentleman named Damon Runyon sounds like someone that my high school Spanish teacher would most assuredly love, for she is fond of overlong sentences with a multiplicity of clauses.
(The 12th grade “tree analysis” often needed several pages stuck together; biggest one we had required stringing five pages, and I wrote small)
Guess I’ll add those books of his to my Amazon wishlist 
Sounds cool, so long as you are not required to do a tree analysis!
Happy to help out, "At this time, I am liking to thank Mr. Ianzin, whom I am not knowing personally, but who is providing a lot of good inside information conderning this guy Runyon and the stories he writes and which ones are worth the reading and much else that is good to know. And as many of the good citizens of this neighbourhood will tell you, there are many kinds of information to be had in this world, but inside information is the kind that is the most popular, and can sometimes lead to people being all smiles coming home from the racetrack, although a lot of inside information turns out, at that, to be fresh air and moondust, and then it is not so good, and people are not so happy and are likely to go see the citizens who did provide this information and have an intense discussion with them about the kind of information they are giving out and how expensive it can be.