Tales From Bohemia

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TALES FROM BOHEMIA

By ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS

ROBERT NEILSON STEPHENS

A MEMORY

One crisp evening early in March, 1887, I climbed the three flights of
rickety stairs to the fourth floor of the old "Press" building to begin
work on the "news desk." Important as the telegraph department was
in making the newspaper, the desk was a crude piece of carpentry. My
companions of the blue pencil irreverently termed it "the shelf." This was
my second night in the novel dignity of editorship. Though my rank was the
humblest, I appreciated the importance of a first step from "the street."
An older man, the senior on the news desk, had preceded me. He was engaged
in a bantering conversation with a youth who lolled at such ease as a
well-worn, cane-bottomed screw-chair afforded. The older man made an
informal introduction, and I learned that the youth with pale face and
serene smile was "Mr. Stephens, private secretary to the managing editor."
That information scarcely impressed me any more than it would now after
more than twenty years' experience of managing editors and their private
secretaries.

The bantering continued, and I learned that the youth cherished literary
aspirations, and that he performed certain work in connection with the
dramatic department for the managing editor, who kept theatrical news and
criticisms within his personal control.

Suddenly a chance remark broke the ice for a friendship between the young
man and me which was to last unbroken until his untimely death. Stephens
wrote the Isaac Pitman phonography! Here had I been for more than three
years wondering to find the shorthand writers of wide-awake and progressive
America floundering in what I conceived to be the Serbonian bog of an
archaic system of stenography. Unexpectedly a most superior young man came
within my ken who was a disciple of Isaac Pitman. Furthermore, like myself,
he was entirely self taught. No old shorthand writer who can look back a
quarter of a century on his own youthful enthusiasm for the art can fail to
appreciate what a bond of sympathy this discovery constituted. From that
night forward we were chosen friends, confiding our ambitions to each
other, discussing the grave issues of life and death, settling the problems
of literature. Notwithstanding his more youthful appearance, my seniority
in age was but slight. Gradually "Bob," as all his friends called him with
affectionate informality, was given opportunities to advance himself, under
the kindly yet firm guidance of the managing editor, Mr. Bradford Merrill.
That gentleman appreciated the distinct gifts of his young protege,
journalistic and literary, and he fostered them wisely and well. I remember
perfectly the first criticism of an important play which "Bob" was
permitted to write unaided. It was Richard Mansfield's initial appearance
in Philadelphia as "Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde," at the Chestnut Street Theatre
on Monday, October 3, 1887.

After the paper had gone to press, and while Mr. Merrill and a few of the
telegraph editors were partaking of a light lunch, the night editor, the
late R.E.A. Dorr, asked Mr. Merrill "how Stephens had made out."

"He has written a very clever and very interesting criticism," Mr. Merrill
replied. "I had to edit it somewhat, because he was inclined to be
Hugoesque and melodramatic in describing the action with very short
sentences. But I am very much pleased, indeed."

That was the beginning of Bob's career as a dramatic critic, a career in
which he gained authority and in which his literary faculties, his felicity
of expression and soundness of judgment found adequate scope.

In the following two or three years the cultivation of the field of
dramatic criticism occupied his time to the temporary exclusion of his
ambition for creative work. He and I read independently; but our tastes
had much in common, though his preference was for imaginative literature.
Meanwhile I was writing short stories with plenty of plot, some of which
found their way into various magazines; but his taste lay more in the line
of the French short story writers who made an incident the medium for
portraying a character. Historical romance had fascinations for me, but
Alphonse Daudet attracted both of us to the artistic possibilities that lay
in selecting the romance of real life for treatment in fiction as against
the crude and repellent naturalism of Zola and his school. This fact is not
a little significant in view of the turn toward historical romance
which exercised all the activities of Robert Neilson Stephens after the
production of his play, "An Enemy to the King," by E.H. Sothern.

Still our intimacy had prepared me for the change. Through many a long
night after working hours we had wandered through the moonlit streets until
daybreak exchanging views freely and sturdily on historical characters on
the philosophy of history, on the character of Henry of Navarre and his
followers, and on the worthies of Elizabethan England, in the literature of
which we had immersed ourselves. Kipling had recently burst meteor-like
on the world, and Barrie raised his head with a whimsical smile closely
chasing a tear. Thomas Hardy was in the saddle writing "Tess," and in
France Daudet was yet active though his prime was past. Guy de Maupassant
continued the production of his marvellous short stories. These were the
contemporary prose writers who engaged our attention. A little later we
hailed the appearance of Stanley J. Weyman with "A Gentleman of France,"
and the Conan Doyle of "The White Company" and "Micah Clarke" rather than
the creator of "Sherlock Holmes" commended our admiration. We were by no
means in accord on the younger authors. Diversity of opinion stimulates
critical discussion, however. I had not yet become reconciled to Kipling,
who provoked my resentment by certain coarse flings at the Irish, but "Bob"
hailed him with whole-hearted enthusiasm.

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.

I remember a time when he was inordinately grave for several days
and pursued a tireless course of special reading through the office
encyclopaedias and some books he had borrowed. At last he drew aside the
veil of reserve which concealed his family affairs from even his closest
friends and inquired if I could direct him to any recent authority on
cancer. I divined the sad truth that his tenderly beloved mother was
suffering from the dread disease. That was the day before serums, and
nothing that he found to read in books or periodicals gave him a faint hope
that his dear one could be cured. Thenceforward, mother and son awaited
the inevitable end with uncomplaining patience which was characteristic of
both. His cheerful smile returned, and while the blow of bereavement was
impending practically all these "Tales from Bohemia" were written.

To follow the career of "R.N.S." and trace his development after he gave up
newspaper work in the fall of 1893 is not required in this place. "Tales
from Bohemia" will be found interesting in themselves, apart from the fact
that they illustrate another phase of the literary gift of a young writer
who contributed so materially to the entertainment of playgoers and novel
readers for a period of ten years after the work in this book was all done.

J.O.G.D.

CONTENTS

I. THE ONLY GIRL HE EVER LOVED

II. A BIT OF MELODY

III. ON THE BRIDGE

IV. THE TRIUMPH OF MOGLEY

V. OUT OF HIS PAST

VI. THE NEW SIDE PARTNER

VII. THE NEEDY OUTSIDER

VIII. TIME AND THE TOMBSTONE

IX. HE BELIEVED THEM

X. A VAGRANT

XI. UNDER AN AWNING

XII. SHANDY'S REVENGE

XIII. THE WHISTLE

XIV. WHISKERS

XV. THE BAD BREAK OF TOBIT MCSTENGER

XVI. THE SCARS

XVII. "LA GITANA"

XVIII. TRANSITION

XIX. A MAN WHO WAS NO GOOD

XX. MR. THORNBERRY'S ELDORADO

XXI. AT THE STAGE DOOR

XXII. "POOR YORICK"

XXIII. COINCIDENCE

XXIV. NEWGAG THE COMEDIAN

XXV. AN OPERATIC EVENING

TALES FROM BOHEMIA

* * * * *

I

THE ONLY GIRL HE EVER LOVED

When Jack Morrow returned from the World's Fair, he found Philadelphia
thermometers registering 95. The next afternoon he boarded a Chestnut
Street car, got out at Front Street, hurried to the ferry station, and
caught a just departing boat for Camden, and on arriving at the other side
of the Delaware, made haste to find a seat in the well-filled express train
bound for Atlantic City.

While he was being whirled across the level surface of New Jersey, past the
cornfields and short stretches of green trees and restful cottage towns, he
thought of the pleasure in store for him--the meeting with the young person
whom he had gradually come to consider the loveliest girl in the world.
Having neglected to read the list of "arrivals" in the newspapers, he knew
not at what hotel she and her aunt were staying. But he would soon make
the rounds of the large beach hotels, at one of which she was likely to be
found.

She did not expect to see him. Therefore her first expression on beholding
him would betray her feelings toward him, whatever they were. Should the
indication be favourable, he would propose to her at the first opportunity,
on beach, boardwalk, hotel piazza, pavilion, yacht or in the surf. Such
were the meditations of Jack Morrow while the train roared across New
Jersey to the sea.

The first sign of the flat green meadows, the smooth waters of the
thoroughfare, the sails afar at the inlet and the long side of the sea-city
stretching out against the sky at the very end of the earth is refreshing
and exhilarating to any one. It gave a doubly keen enjoyment to Jack
Morrow.

"Within an hour, perhaps," he mused, as the reviving odour of the salt
water touched his nostrils, "I shall see Edith."

When with the crowd he had made his way out of the train, and traversed
the long platform at the Atlantic City station, ignoring the stentorian
solicitations of the 'bus drivers, he started walking toward the ocean
promenade, invited by the glimpse of sea at the far end of the avenue. Thus
he crossed that wide thoroughfare--Atlantic Avenue--with its shops and
trolley-cars; passed picturesque hotels and cottages; crossed Pacific
Avenue where carriages and dog-carts were being driven rapidly between the
rows of pretty summer edifices, and traversed the famously long block that
ends at the boardwalk and the strand.

He succeeded in getting a third-floor room on the ocean side of the first
hotel where he applied. He learned from the clerk that Edith was not at
this house. Sea air having revived his appetite, he decided to dine before
setting out in search of her.

When, after his meal, he reached the boardwalk, the electric lights had
already been turned on and the regular evening crowd of promenaders was
beginning to form. He strolled along now looking at the beach and the sea,
now at the boardwalk crowd where he might perhaps at any moment behold
the face of "the loveliest girl in the world." He beheld instead, as he
approached the Tennessee pier, the face of his friend George Haddon.

"Hello, old boy!" exclaimed Morrow, grasping his friend's hand. "What are
you doing here? I thought your affairs would keep you in New York all
summer."

"So they would," replied Haddon, in a tone and with a look whose distress
he made little effort to conceal. "But something happened."

"Why, what on earth's the matter? You seem horribly downcast."

Haddon was silent for a moment; then he said suddenly:

"I'll tell you all about it. I have to tell somebody or it will split my
head. But come out on the pier, away from the noise of that merry-go-round
organ."

Neither spoke as the two young men passed through the concert pavilion and
dancing hall out to a quieter part of the long pier. They sat near the
railing and looked out over the sea, on which, as evening fell, the
rippling band of moonlight grew more and more luminous. They could see,
at the right, the long line of brilliant lights on the boardwalk, and the
increasing army of promenaders. Detached from the furthest end of the line
of boardwalk lights, shone those of distant Longport. Above these, the sky
had turned from heliotrope to hues dark and indefinable, but indescribably
beautiful. Down on the beach were only a few people, strolling near the
tide line, a carriage, a man on horseback, and three frolicking dogs.

"It's simply this," abruptly began Haddon. "Six weeks ago I was married
to--"

"Why, I never heard of it. Let me congrat--"

"No, don't, I was married to a comic opera singer, named Lulu Ray. I don't
suppose you've ever heard of her, for she was only recently promoted from
the chorus to fill small parts. We took a flat, and lived happily on the
whole, for a month, although with such small quarrels as might be expected.
Two weeks ago she went out and didn't come back. Since then I haven't been
able to find her in New York or at any of the resorts along the Jersey
coast. I suppose she was offended at something I said during a quarrel that
grew out of my insisting on our staying in New York all summer. Knowing her
liking for Atlantic City--she was a Philadelphia girl before she went on
the stage--I came here at once to hunt her up and apologize and agree to
her terms."

"Well?"

"Well, I haven't found her. She's not at any hotel in Atlantic City. I'm
going back to New York to-morrow to get some clue as to where she is."

"I suppose you're very fond of her still?"

"Yes; that's the trouble. And then, of course, a man doesn't like to have
a woman who bears his name going around the country alone, her whereabouts
unknown."

Morrow was on the point of saying: "Or perhaps with some other man," but he
checked himself. He was sufficiently mundane to refrain from attempting to
reason Haddon out of his affection for the fugitive, or to advise him as to
what to do. He knew that in merely letting Haddon unburden on him the cause
of anxiety, he had done all that Haddon would expect from any friend.

He limited himself, therefore, to reminding Haddon that all men have their
annoyances in this life; to treating the woman's offence as light and
commonplace, and to cheering him up by making him join in seeing the sights
of the boardwalk.

They looked on at the pier hop, while Professor Willard's musicians played
popular tunes; returned to the boardwalk and watched the pretty girls
leaning against the wooden beasts on the merry-go-round while the organ
screamed forth, "Daddy Wouldn't Buy Me a Bow Wow;" experienced that not
very illusive illusion known as "The Trip to Chicago;" were borne aloft on
an observation wheel; made the rapid transit of the toboggan slide, visited
the phonographs and heard a shrill reproduction of "Molly and I and the
Baby;" tried the slow and monotonous ride on the "Figure Eight," and the
swift and varied one on the switchback. They bought saltwater taffy and ate
it as they passed down the boardwalk and looked at the moonlight. Down on
the Bowery-like part of the boardwalk they devoured hot sausages, and in a
long pavilion drank passable beer and saw a fair variety show. Thence they
left the boardwalk, walked to Atlantic Avenue and mounted a car that bore
them to Shauffler's, where among light-hearted beer drinkers they heard the
band play "Sousa's Cadet March" and "After the Ball," and so they arrived
at midnight.

All this was beneficial to Haddon and pleasant enough in itself, but it
prevented Morrow that night from prosecuting his search for the loveliest
girl in the world. He postponed the search to the next day. And when that
time came, after Haddon had started for New York, occurred an event that
caused Morrow to postpone the search still further.

He had decided to go up the boardwalk on the chance of seeing Edith in a
pavilion or on the beach. If he should reach the vicinity of the lighthouse
without finding her, he would turn back and inquire at every hotel near the
beach until he should obtain news of her.

He had reached Pennsylvania Avenue when he was attracted by the white tents
that here dotted the wide beach. He went down the high flight of steps from
the boardwalk to rest awhile in the shade of one of the tents.

Although it was not yet 11 o'clock, several people in bathing suits were
making for the sea. A little goat wagon with children aboard was passing
the tents, and after it came the cart of the "hokey-pokey" peddler, drawn
by a donkey that wore without complaint a decorated straw bathing hat.
Morrow, looking at the feet of the donkey, saw in the sand something
that shone in the sunlight. He picked it up and found that it was a gold
bracelet studded with diamonds.

He questioned every near-by person without finding the owner. He therefore
put the bracelet in his pocket, intending to advertise it. Then he resumed
his stroll up the boardwalk. He went past the lighthouse and turned back.

He had reached the Tennessee Avenue pier without having found the loveliest
girl in the world. His eye caught a small card that had just been tacked up
at the pier entrance. Approaching it he read:

"Lost--On the beach between Virginia and South Carolina Avenues, a gold
bracelet with seven diamonds. A liberal reward will be paid for its
recovery at the ---- Hotel."

The hotel named was the one at which Morrow was staying. He hurried
thither.

"Who lost the diamond bracelet?" he asked the clerk.

"That young lady standing near the elevator. Miss Hunt, I think her name
is," said the clerk consulting the register. "Yes, that's it, she only
arrived last night."

Morrow saw standing near the elevator door, a lithe, well-rounded girl
with brown hair and great gray eyes that were fixed on him. She was in the
regulation summer-girl attire--blue Eton suit, pink shirtwaist, sailor hat,
and russet shoes. He hastened to her.

"Miss Hunt, I have the honour to return your bracelet."

She opened her lips and eyes with pleasurable surprise and reached somewhat
eagerly for the piece of jewelry.

"Thank you ever so much. I took a walk on the beach just after breakfast
and dropped it somewhere. It's too large."

"I picked it up near Pennsylvania Avenue. It's a curious coincidence that
it should be found by some one stopping at the same hotel. But, pardon me,
you're going away without mentioning the reward."

She looked at him with some surprise, until she discovered that he was
jesting. Then she smiled a smile that gave Morrow quite a pleasant thrill,
and said, with some tenderness of tone:

"Let the reward be what you please."

"And that will be to do what you shall please to have me do."

"Ah, that's nice. Then I accept your services at once. I am quite alone
here; haven't any acquaintances in the hotel. I want to go bathing and I'm
rather timid about going alone, although I'd made up my mind to do so and
was just going up after my bathing suit."

"Then I am to have the happiness of escorting you into the surf."

They went bathing together not far from where he had found the bracelet. He
discovered that she could swim as well as he; also that in her dark blue
bathing costume, with sailor collar and narrow white braid, she was a most
shapely person.

She laughed frequently while they were breasting the breakers; and
afterwards, as in their street attire they were returning on the boardwalk,
she chatted brightly with him, revealing a certain cleverness in off-hand
persiflage.

He took her into the tent behind the observation wheel to see the Egyptian
exhibition, and she was good enough to laugh at his jokes about the
mummies, although the mummies did not seem to interest her. Further down
the boardwalk they stopped at the Japanese exhibition, and on the way out
he caught himself saying that if it were possible, he would take great
pleasure in hauling her in a jinrikisha.

"I'll remember that promise and make you push me in a wheel-chair," she
answered.

When they were back at the hotel, she turned suddenly and said:

"By the way, what's your name? Mine's Clara Hunt."

He told her, and while she went up the elevator with her bathing suit, he
arranged with the head waiter to have himself seated at her table.

He learned from the clerk that she had arrived alone with a letter of
introduction from a former guest of the house, and intended to stay at
least a fortnight.

At luncheon he proposed that they should take a sail in the afternoon. She
said, with a smile:

"As it is you who invites me, I'll give up my nap and go."

They rode in a 'bus to the Inlet, and after spending half an hour drinking
beer and listening to the band on the pavilion, they hired a skipper to
take them out in his catboat. Six miles out the boat pitched considerably
and Miss Hunt increased her hold on Morrow's admiration by not becoming
seasick. At his suggestion they cast out lines for bluefish. She borrowed
mittens from the captain and pulled in four fish in quick succession.

"What an athletic woman you are," said Morrow.

"Yes, indeed."

"In fact, everything that's charming," he continued.

She replied softly: "Don't say that unless you mean it. It pleases me too
much, coming from you."

Morrow mused: "Here's a girl who is frank enough to say so when she likes a
fellow. It makes her all the more fascinating, too. Some women would make
me very tired throwing themselves at me this way. But it is different with
her."

They gave the fish to the captain and returned from the Inlet by the
Atlantic Avenue trolley, just in time for dinner. She did not lament her
lack of opportunity to change her clothes for dinner, nor did she complain
about the coat of sunburn she had acquired.

In the evening, they sat together for a time on the pier, took a turn
together at one of the waltzes, although neither cared much for dancing at
this time of year, walked up the boardwalk and compared the moon with the
high beacon light of the lighthouse.

He bought her marshmallows at a confectioner's booth, a fan at a Japanese
store, and a queer oriental paper cutter at a Turkish bazaar. They took two
switchback rides, during which he was compelled to put his arm around her.
Finally, reluctant to end the evening, they stood for some minutes leaning
against the boardwalk railing, listening to the moan of the sea and
watching the shaft of moonlight stretching from beach to horizon.

It was not until he was alone in his room that Morrow bethought of his
neglect of the loveliest girl in the world. And remorseful as he was, he
did not form any distinct intention of resuming his search for her the next
day. He rather congratulated himself on not having met her while he was
with this enchanting Clara Hunt.

And he passed next day also with the enchanting Clara Hunt. They sat on the
piazza together reading different parts of the same newspaper for an hour
after breakfast; went to the boardwalk and turned in at a shuffle-board
hall, where they spent another hour making the weights slide along the
sanded board and then took another ocean bath.

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