At a dinner given in honor of Mr. Frank R. Stockton by the Authors' Club of New York, early in the year 1901, Mr. Richard Watson Gilder, the editor of The Century, said: "A young man once came to me and said he would like to contribute to the magazine every month. I asked him what he wanted to write. 'Oh,' he said, 'I'd like to send you each month a story like The Lady or the Tiger?'" Mr. Gilder said at the end of his speech: "When I think of the immense amount of pleasure Mr. Stockton brought into the life of Stevenson it seems to me that alone would be to him a benediction forever."

The editor of The Century thus happily illustrated the attitude of the reading world toward Mr. Stockton: on one side is an eager desire to emulate him, and on the other an equally eager desire to go to him for pleasure or for comfort. There is a natural grace about his stories which has often deceived the inexpert into an attempt to rival him, while the sweet and simple comedy of the stories has for more than a quarter of a century been the delight of young and old. The young man who visited Mr. Gilder, and the brilliant novelist solacing himself with the acquaintance of Pomona, Ardis Claverden, Mrs. Null, and Chipperton, are types.

The object of this variety of admiration was born in Philadelphia on April 5, 1834. On his father's side he is a descendant of the Richard Stockton who signed the Declaration of Independence. His father was notable chiefly for his religious zeal. He married twice, and his second wife was the author's mother. She was a Virginian; and from her side of the family tree was derived the name Ardis, found in "Ardis Claverden." There is a Stocktonian touch in the familiar story that the Christian name of Francis Richard was imposed upon Mr. Stockton by one of his half-sisters, who borrowed half of it from Francis I. of France and half from Richard Coeur de Lion. Some readers will doubtless remember Louise Stockton, Francis's sister, who was given the name of Napoleon's second wife.

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.

"I had planned out the book of Pomona's travels," he says, "and was about ready to write it. I was in Philadelphia at the time, and had a business appointment with my dentist, an old friend. By the way, you should never change your dentist any more than you should your plumber. Both will want to take out the work of their predecessors, swearing that it was done very badly. Well, while in the chair I got to talking with this dentist friend about my new book. I told him I had serious thoughts of killing the baby. He was very much interested. We talked over the advisability of doing this, and, while he was not convinced, he in the main agreed with me.

"I had been finished with, and clasping his hand went into the waiting room on my way out. This waiting-room was filled with women. As I passed through the door I heard him call:

"'Then you have positively decided to kill that baby?'

"'Positively,' I replied.

"You should have seen the women stare. It was not until I got well out in the hallway that I realized what they must, of course, have thought."

Pomona, the heroine, existed in real life. She was a charity girl whom the Stocktons had taken into the family. She was incorrigibly careless, however, and back to the charitable institution she was sent. She was stage-struck, too, and for all we know--Mr. Stockton veils the matter, half mysteriously,--she may have escaped from her guardians and won bouquets for herself before the footlights. While we are on the subject of characters real and imaginary we may add that Mrs. Lecks and Mrs. Aleshine enjoyed actual existence under more common names. It has always been a source of affected trouble to Stockton that some people will persist in calling the former Mrs. Leeks and the latter Mrs. Al-e-shi-ne, instead of Aleshine.

The author's success with these two characters recalls the criticism that he was ignorant of the way in which young folks make love. "It is much more to my liking," he says, "to write about middle-aged women than young women. The older ones have more character; you can make them do more amusing things."

But, to revert to the main line, "Rudder Grange" carved its writer's name in the Hall of Fame. It is undoubtedly his most popular work, for there is a call for it even at this late day. Some of his admirers call it his masterpiece. It is no backhanded compliment to say that he has never improved upon the profusion or the quaintness of its humor.

We have said that the success of "Rudder Grange" induced Stockton to abandon everything but literature. He worked first for the Philadelphia Morning Post; later he joined Edward Eggleston on Hearth and Home; by and by he cast his lot with Scribner's Monthly, and finally he settled down on the editorial staff of St. Nicholas. In this position he remained until, in 1880, he gave up editorial work altogether. Thereafter he devoted himself entirely to fiction.

Even more sensational than the luck of "Rudder Grange" was the luck of "The Lady or the Tiger?" The story had a phenomenal sale--for those days--in this country, and it has been translated into a few foreign languages. "Perhaps the most interesting thing about 'The Lady or the Tiger?'" says the humorist, "is its great popularity among the savage races. It has been told again and again by the story-tellers of Burmah. A missionary once told the story to a tribe of Karens up in the north of Burmah. When she came back a year later the tribe surrounded her and wanted to know if she had found out whether--

"I cannot answer the question, for I have no earthly idea myself. I really have never been able to decide whether the Lady or the Tiger came out of that door. Yet I must defend myself. People for years have upbraided me for leaving it a mystery; some used to write me that I had no right to impose upon the good nature of the public in that manner. However, when I started in to write the story, I really intended to finish it. But it would never let itself be finished. I could not decide. And to this day, I have, I assure you, no more idea than anyone else."

It used to be said that Mr. Stockton was a short-story writer and nothing more, as if that were not the most difficult branch of fiction; but he silenced these reckless critics with "The Late Mrs. Null," which, in the beginning, had the biggest circulation of all his books. Since then book has followed book, regularly but not hurriedly. The author of "Rudder Grange" does not follow the plan of Trollope; he does not work so many hours a day, mood or no mood. Sometimes up to luncheon time not a word has been put on paper.

He never writes; he dictates. In his early days he dictated to his wife, but in recent years he has employed a stenographer. At any appointed hour in the morning the young woman trips downstairs from the room at the top of the house to which she and her noisy typewriter have been banished, and if the author have his subject well in mind he delivers one thousand five hundred words before the morning is over. From this first draft the secretary makes the draft for the printer, which seldom is revised. The fact is, Stockton shapes his delightful stories in his mind as effectively as most other authors shape theirs on paper; and, therefore, when a story has been dictated, he is done with it. Mrs. Stockton, of whom we spoke as his first amanuensis, was Miss Marian E. Tuttle of Amelia County, Virginia, visits to whose home gave the novelist the impressions of negro life which he has described so felicitously. At present the Stocktons live near Charlestown, West Virginia. The estate, named Claymont, comprises one hundred and fifty acres of a wide-spreading piece of land once owned by Washington. The house is said to have been planned by the first President himself. At any rate, it was built by the immortal patriot's grandnephew, and it takes its name from the Washington homestead in England. Very appropriately the edition of Mr. Stockton's works has been given the title of Shenandoah.

Personally the fanciful story-teller is small, spare, and shy. His is an elusive personality. "A personality more winsome and delightful," says one of his friends, "it would be difficult to find. It is a small man that sits before you, a keen-eyed man, whose eyes you know miss nothing, a man whose mustache is iron-gray and whose hair is almost white. His photographs give no hint of the man; they do not even mirror his personal appearance. Nothing save a talk with him gives you that." Another friend has said: "The big dark eyes, full of patient, weary expression, are luminous; the mouth close and discouraged, expands into smiling curves, sweet and sympathetic; the whole soul is in the face, and from head to foot, Frank Stockton is the genial responsive man. It is like a brilliant burst of sunshine following a cloud, suddenly and unexpectedly, and therefore more delicious in surprise and beauty."

Everyone under this charmer's spell will, we are sure, say with Edmund Clarence Stedman:

JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS.