We were not the only members of the staff with literary aspirations. Others, like the late Andrew E. Watrous, had achievements of no mean order in prose and verse. Still others were sustaining the traditions of “The Press” as a newspaper office which throughout its history had been a stepping stone to magazine work and other forms of literary employment. Richard Harding Davis was on the paper and “Bob” Stephens was one of the two men most intimately in his confidence regarding his ambitions. Finally Bob told me that “Dick” had taken him to his house and read to him “A bully short story,” adding, “It's a corker.” I inquired the nature of the story. “Just about the 'Press' office,” Bob replied, Among other particulars I asked the title. “'Gallegher,'” said Bob. Three years elapsed after our first acquaintance before Bob Stephens began writing stories and sketches. The “Tales from Bohemia” collected in this volume represent his early creative work. We were in the better sense a small band of Bohemians, the few friends and companions who will be found figuring in the tales under one guise or another. Many a merry prank and many a jest is recalled by these pages. Of criticism I have no word to say. Let the reader understand how they came into being and they will explain themselves. “Bob” Stephens took his own environment, the anecdotes he heard, the persons whom he met and the friends whom he knew, and he treated them as the writers of short stories in France twenty years ago treated their own Parisian environment. He made an incident the means of illustrating a portrayal of character. Later he was to construct elaborate plots for dramas and historical novels. “Bohemianism” was but a brief episode in the life of “R. N. S.” It ceased after his marriage. But his natural gaiety remained. Seldom was his joyous disposition overcast, or his winning smile eclipsed. For six months I was privileged to live in the house with his mother. If he had inherited his literary predilections from his father,--a highly respected educator of Huntington, Pa. from whose academy many eminent professional men were graduated,--his gentleness, his cheerfulness, his winning smile and the ingratiating qualities to which it was the key, as surely came from his mother.