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.
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