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