In 1886, he published a novel, The Midge, followed in 1887 by The Story of a New York House. But his best efforts in fiction were his short stories and sketches Short Sixes (1891), More Short Sixes (1894), Made in France (1893), Zadoc Pine and Other Stories (1891), Love in Old Cloathes and Other Stories (1896), and Jersey Street and Jersey Lane (1896). His verses Airs from Arcady and Elsewhere (1884), containing the well-known poem, The Way to A ready; Rowen (1892); and Poems (1896), edited by his friend Brander Matthews, displaying a light play of imagination and a delicate workmanship. He also wrote clever vers de société and parodies. One of his several plays (usually written in collaboration), was The Tower of Babel (1883).