It is remarkable, by the way, that with a sister so ready in the choice of names the novelist should himself find denomination a troublesome phase of his art. "The hardest work I have," he once said, "is naming my characters. Many of them are completely made up, others are suggested by something, others are but slightly changed from real names. I seldom use a name that in itself is a description of the character. That was Dickens's way, you remember. Nevertheless, sometimes one of my names does describe the character. Take Tippengray of 'The Squirrel Inn.' Tippengray was a man whose hair was slightly tipped with gray. I always liked that name. Chipperton in 'A Jolly Fellowship' is very descriptive also." Francis Richard first went to a private school in West Philadelphia. Later he attended the public school, and at the age of eighteen was graduated from the Central High School with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. It was noticed at school that his bent was literary. In fact, this was obvious to his parents when he was only ten, for at that age he began to scribble verses. In spite of this proclivity, however, the boy, after leaving the high school, took up wood-carving as a profession. Just one bond existed between himself and the world of letters, and that was his membership in a high school organization called the "Literary and Forensic Circle." Upon this slight basis has been erected an exceptionally brilliant career, for it was to the Circle that the Ting-a-Ling stories were first read. These stories were collected for his first book. The Circle also heard "Kate" as soon as it was written. This story and "The Story of Champaigne" were published by the _Southern Messenger_; and it is sufficient to say that they created a demand for more like them. Thereafter, until 1874, Stockton wrote many short stories, his star all the time rising a little higher above the horizon. But in 1874 the star blazed forth wondrously with the appearance of the first part of "Rudder Grange." From that day the author's place among the famous American humorists has been secure. The primary effect of the remarkable success of the first part of "Rudder Grange" was to encourage the author to write a second part; its next effect was to persuade him to abandon wood-carving for literature. There was an extraordinary infantile tangle connected with the popular story. In the original papers in _Scribner's_ there was no baby; in the first edition of the book there was one baby; in the second edition there were three babies; in the third edition there were two. The author finally let Pomona's baby disappear, for it would have embarrassed her trip abroad. The author tells a story about this baby.