ses herself and is not
perhaps herself surpassed by any of the humorous short stories that
have come to the fore so far in America in the twentieth century. The
story is no less delightful in its fidelity to fact and understanding
of young human nature than in its relish of humor. Some of her stories
deserving of special mention are: _The Capture of Andy Proudfoot_
(June, 1904, _Harper's_), _In the Strength of the Hills_ (December,
1905, _Metropolitan_), _The Machinations of Ocoee Gallantine_ (April,
1906, _Century_), _A Call_ (August, 1906, _Harper's_), _Scott
Bohannon's Bond _(May 4, 1907, _Collier's_), and _A Clean Shave_
(November, 1912, _Century_). Her best short stories do not seem to
have been collected in volumes as yet, although she has had several
notable long works of fiction published, such as _The Power and the
Glory_ (1910), and several good juveniles.

William James Lampton (?-1917), who was known to many of his admirers
as Will Lampton or as W.J.L. merely, was one of the most unique and
interesting characters of literary and Bohemian New York from about
1895 to his death in 1917. I remember walking up Fifth Avenue with him
one Sunday afternoon just after he had shown me a letter from the man
who was then Comptroller of the Currency. The letter was signed so
illegibly that my companion was in doubts as to the sender, so he
suggested that we stop at a well-known hotel at the corner of 59th
Street, and ask the manager who the Comptroller of the Currency then
was, so that he might know whom the letter was from. He said that the
manager of a big hotel like that, where many prominent people stayed,
would be sure to know. When this problem had been solved to our
satisfaction, John Skelton Williams proving to be the man, Lampton
said, "Now you've told me who he is, I'll show you who I am." So he
asked for a copy of _The American Magazine_ at a newsstand in the
hotel corridor, opened it, and showed the manager a full-page picture
of himself clad in a costume suggestive of the time of Christopher
Columbus, with high ruffs around his neck, that happened to appear in
the magazine the current month. I mention this incident to illustrate
the lack of conventionality and whimsical originality of the man, that
stood out no less forcibly in his writings than in his daily life. He
had little use for "doing the usual thing in the usual sort of way."
He first gained prominence by his book of verse, _Yawps_ (1900). His
poems