uddenly found himself directing a stenographer instead of being a
stenographer himself. Evidently his apprentice days were over. He
had, in addition, the charge of sending all the editorial copies of the
new books to the press for review, and of keeping a record of those
reviews. This naturally brought to his desk the authors of the house
who wished to see how the press received their works.

The study of the writers who were interested in following the press
notices of their books, and those who were indifferent to them became a
fascinating game to young Bok. He soon discovered that the greater the
author the less he seemed to care about his books once they a were
published. Bok noticed this, particularly, in the case of Robert Louis
Stevenson, whose work had attracted him, but, although he used the most
subtle means to inveigle the author into the office to read the press
notices, he never succeeded. Stevenson never seemed to have the
slightest interest in what the press said of his books.

One day Mr. Burlingame asked Bok to take some proofs to Stevenson at
his home; thinking it might be a propitious moment to interest the
author in the popular acclaim that followed the publication of _Doctor
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_, Bok put a bunch of press notices in his pocket.
He found the author in bed, smoking his inevitable cigarette.

As the proofs were to be brought back, Bok waited, and thus had an
opportunity for nearly two hours to see the author at work. No man
ever went over his proofs more carefully than did Stevenson; his
corrections were numerous; and sometimes for ten minutes at a time he
would sit smoking and thinking over a single sentence, which, when he
had satisfactorily shaped it in his mind, he would recast on the proof.

Stevenson was not a prepossessing figure at these times. With his
sallow skin and his black dishevelled hair, with finger-nails which had
been allowed to grow very long, with fingers discolored by tobacco--in
short, with a general untidiness that was all his own, Stevenson, so
Bok felt, was an author whom it was better to read than to see. And
yet his kindliness and gentleness more than offset the unattractiveness
of his physical appearance.

After one or two visits from Bok, having grown accustomed to him,
Stevenson would discuss some sentence in an article, or read some
amended paragraph out loud and ask whether Bok though it sounded
better. To pass upon Stevenson as a stylist w