DEAR MR. SHACKELFORD: There has been no steam in the third-floor editorial rooms this afternoon. Somebody must be responsible for this brutal neglect, which is of so frequent occurrence that forbearance has ceased to be a virtue. I appeal to you in the hope that you will be able to correct the outrage. Does it not seem an injustice that the writers of this paper should be put at the mercy of sub-cellar hands, who are continually demonstrating their incompetency for the work which they are supposed to do and for which they are paid?

Yours truly,

EUGENE FIELD. January 11, 1887.

To those familiar with the internal economy of newspaper offices it will be no news to learn that death by freezing in the editorial rooms would be regarded as a matter of small moment compared to a temperature in the press room that chilled the printing ink in the fountains to the slow consistency of molasses in January.

To return to the furnishing of the room in which Field did the greater part of his work for the Morning News. Originally it did not boast a desk. A pine table with two drawers was considered good enough for the most brilliant paragrapher in the United States, and, for all he cared, so it was. He had no special use for a desk, for at that time he carried his library in his head and wrote on his lap. I am happy in being able to present in corroboration of this a study of Eugene Field at work, drawn from life by his friend, J.L. Sclanders, then artist for the News, and also the copy of a blue print photograph, on the back of which Field wrote, "And they call this art!"



In explanation of these pictures, both true to life when made, it should be said that, except when there was no steam on, Field almost invariably wrote in his shirt-sleeves, generally with his waistcoat unbuttoned and his collar off, and always with his feet crossed across the corner of the desk or table. One of the first things he did on coming to the office was to take off his shoes and put on a pair of slippers with no counters around the heels, so that they slapped along the floor as he walked and hung from his toes as he wrote.

Why Field always rolled up the bottoms of his trousers on coming into the office and turned them down when he went out, I do not remember to have known. Probably it was partly on account of his contradictory nature, and partly to save the trousers from dragging, for the unloosening of his "vest" was always attended by the unbuttoning of his suspenders to permit of his sitting with greater ease upon the curve of his spine. But why he should have rolled his trousers half way up to the knee passes my comprehension, as the reason has passed from my memory, if I ever knew it.

For a long time a rusty old carpenter's saw hung on the wall of his "boudoir." Beside it were some burglars' implements, and subsequently a convict's suit hanging to a peg excited the wonder of the curious and the sarcasm of the ribald.

The table in Field's room, besides serving as a resting place for his feet, was covered with the exchanges which were passed along to him after they had passed under the scrutiny and shears of the exchange editor. When Field had gone through them with his rusty scissors they were only fit for the floor, where he strewed them with a riotous hand.

If the reader has followed thus far he has a tolerably fair notion of the unpropitious and eccentric surroundings amid which Field worked immediately after coming to Chicago. Out of this strange environment came as variegated a column of satire, wit, and personal persiflage as ever attracted and fascinated the readers of a daily newspaper.

And now of the man himself as I first saw him. He was at that time in his thirty-third year, my junior by a year. If Eugene Field had ever stood up to his full height he would have measured slightly over six feet. But he never did and was content to shamble through life, appearing two inches shorter than he really was. Shamble is perhaps hardly the word to use. But neither glide nor shuffle fits his gait any more accurately. It was simply a walk with the least possible waste of energy. It fitted Dr. Holmes's definition of walking as forward motion to prevent falling. And yet Field never gave you the impression that he was about to topple over. His legs always acted as if they were weary and would like to lean their master up against something. As to what that something might be, he would probably have answered, "Pie."

Field's arms were long, ending in well-shaped hands, which were remarkably deft and would have been attractive had he not at some time spoiled the fingers by the nail-biting habit. His shoulders were broad and square, and not nearly as much rounded as might have been expected from his position in writing. It was not the stoop of his shoulders that detracted from his height, but a certain settling together, if I may so say, of the couplings of his backbone. He was large-boned throughout, but without the muscles that should have gone with such a frame. He would probably have described himself as tall, big, gangling. He had no personal taste or pride in clothing, and never to my knowledge came across a tailor who took enough interest in his clothes to give him the benefit of a good fit or to persuade him to choose a becoming color. For this reason he looked best-dressed in a dress suit, which he never wore when there was any possibility of avoiding it. His favorite coat was a sack, cut straight, and made from some cloth in which the various shades of yellow, green, and brown struggled for mastery.

But it was of little consequence how Field's body was clothed. He wore a 7 3-8 hat and there was a head and face under it that compelled a second glance and repaid scrutiny in any company. The photographs of Field are numerous, and some of them preserve a fair impression of his remarkable physiognomy. None of the paintings of him that I have seen do him justice, and the etchings are not much of an improvement on the paintings. The best photographs only fail because they cannot retain the peculiar deathlike pallor of the skin and the clear, innocent china blue of the large eyes. These eyes were deep set under two arching brows, and yet were so large that their deep setting was not at first apparent. Field's nose was a good size and well shaped, with an unusual curve of the nostrils strangely complementary to the curve of the arch above the eyes. There was a mole on one cheek, which Field always insisted on turning to the camera and which the photographer very generally insisted on retouching out in the finishing. Field was wont to say that no photograph of him was genuine unless that mole was "blown in on the negative." The photographs all give him a good chin, in which there was merely the suggestion of that cleft which he held marred the strength of George William Curtis's lower jaw.

The feature of his face, if such it can be called, where all portraits failed, was the hair. It was so fine that there would not have been much of it had it been thick, and as it was quite thin there was only a shadow between it and baldness. Even its color was elusive—a cross between brown and dove color. Only those who knew Field before he came to Chicago have any impression as to the color of the thatch upon that head which never during our acquaintance stooped to a slouch hat. This typical head gear of the West had no attraction for him. The formal black or brown derby for winter and the seasonable straw hat for summer seemed necessary to tone down the frivolity of his neckties, which were chosen with a cowboy's gaudy taste. To the day of his death Field delighted to present neckties, generally of the made-up variety, to his friends, which, it is needless to say, they never failed to accept and seldom wore. Often in the afternoon as it neared two o'clock he would stick his head above the partition between our rooms and say, "Come along, Nompy" (his familiar address for the writer). "Come along and I'll buy you a new necktie."

"The dickens take your neckties!" or something like it, would be my reply.

Whereupon, with the philosophy of which he never wearied, Field would rejoin, "Very well, if you won't let me buy you a necktie, you must buy me a lunch," and off we would march to Henrici's coffee-house around the corner on Madison Street, generally gathering Ballantyne and Snip in our train as we passed the kennel of the managing editor of what was to be the newspaper with the largest morning circulation in Chicago.



CHAPTER XIII

RELATIONS WITH STAGE FOLK

Reference has been made to Field's predilection for the theatrical profession and to his fondness for the companionship of those who had attained prominence in it. During his stay in Denver he had established friendly, and in some instances intimate, relations with the star actors who included that city in the circuit of their yearly pilgrimages. The story of how he ingratiated himself into the good graces of Christine Nilsson, at the expense of a rival newspaper, may be of interest before taking a final farewell of the episodes connected with his life in Colorado. When Madame Nilsson was journeying overland in her special drawing-room car with Henry Abbey, Marcus Meyer, and Charles Mathews, Field wrote to Omaha, anticipating their arrival there, to make inquiry as to how the party employed the dull hours of travel so as to interest the erratic prima donna. It was his intention to prepare a newspaper sketch of the trip.

The reply was barren of incident, save a casual allusion to certain sittings at the American game of poker, in which the Swedish songstress had the advantage of the policy or the luck of her companions. Out of this inch of cloth Field manufactured something better than the proverbial ell of very interesting gossip. The reconstructed item reached San Francisco as soon as Madame Nilsson, and was copied from the Tribune into the coast papers on the eve of her opening concert. Now, the madame thought that the American world looked askance at a woman who gambled, and when the article was kindly brought to her attention she flew into one of those rages which, report has said, were the real tragedies of her life. When returning overland to Denver, Abbey telegraphed ahead to Field, and he, with Cowen, went up to Cheyenne to meet the party. On entering the drawing-room car the visitors were hurried into Abbey's compartment with an air of bewildering mystery, and were there informed in whispers that Madame Nilsson was furious against the Tribune and would never forgive anybody attached to it.

"Oh, I'll arrange that," said Field. "Don't announce us, but let us call on the madame and be introduced."

After some further parley this was done, and this is how he was greeted.

"Meestair Field—zee—T-r-ee-bune," Madame Nilsson exclaimed hotly. "I prefair not zee acquaintance of your joor-nal."

"Excuse me, madam," persisted Field, blandly and with grave earnestness, "I think from what Mr. Abbey has told us that you are bent on doing the Tribune and its staff a great injustice. It was not the Tribune that published the poker story that caused you so much just annoyance. It was our rival, the Republican, a very disreputable newspaper, which is edited by persons without the least instinct of gentlemen and with no consideration for the feelings of a lady of your refined sensibilities."

At this Madame Nilsson thawed visibly, and promptly appealed to Abbey, Mathews, and Mayer to learn if she had been misinformed. They, of course, fell in with Field's story, and upon being assured that she was in error the madame's anger relaxed, and she was soon holding her sides from laughter at Field's drolleries. The result was that the innocent Republican staff could not get within speaking distance of Madame Nilsson during her stay in Denver. The second night of her visit being Christmas eve, the madame held her Christmas tree in the Windsor Hotel, with Field acting the role of Santa Claus and the Tribune staff playing the parts of good little boys, while their envious rivals of the Republican were not invited to share in the crumbs that fell from that Christmas supper-table.

"I have been a great theatre-goer," says Field in his "Auto-Analysis." And it may be doubted if any writer of our time repaid the stage as generously for the pleasure he received from those who walked its boards before and behind the footlights. No better analysis of his relations to the profession has been made than that from the pen of his friend Cowen:

"At the very outset of his newspaper career," says he, "Field's inclinations led him to the society of the green-room. Of western critics and reviewers he was the first favorite among dramatic people. Helpful, kind, and enthusiastic, he was rarely severe and never captious. Though in no sense an analyst, he was an amusing reviewer and a great advertiser. Once he conceived an attachment for an actor or actress, his generous mind set about bringing such fortunate person more conspicuously into public notice. Emma Abbott's baby, which she never had, and of whose invented existence he wrote at least a bookful of startling and funny adventures; Francis Wilson's legs; Sol Smith Russell's Yankee yarns; Billy Crane's droll stories; Modjeska's spicy witticisms—these and other jocular pufferies, quoted and read everywhere with relish for years—were among his hobby-horse performances begun at that time (1881) and continued long after he had settled down in the must and rust of bibliomania."

For a long time not a week went by that Field did not invent some marvellous tale respecting Emma Abbott, once the most popular light-opera prima donna of the American stage—every yarn calculated to widen the circle of her popularity. Upon an absolutely fictitious autobiography of Miss Abbott he once exhausted the fertility of his fancy in the form of a review,[1] which went the rounds of the press and which, on her death, contributed many a sober paragraph to the newspaper reviews of her life.

[1] Vide Appendix.

To the fame of another opera singer of those days he contributed, by paragraphs of an entirely different flavor from those that extolled the Puritan virtues and domestic felicities of Miss Abbott (Mrs. Wetherell), as may be judged from the following "Love Plaint," written shortly after he came to Chicago:

_The tiny birdlings in the tree Their tuneful tales of love relate— Alas, no lover comes to me— I flock alone, without a mate.

Mine eyes are hot with bitter tears, My soul disconsolately yearns— But, ah, no wooing knight appears— In vain my quenchless passion burns.

Unheeded are my glowing charms— No heroes claim a moonlight tryst— All empty are my hungry arms— My virgin cheeks are all unkissed.

Oh, would some cavalier might haste To crown me with his manly love, And, with his arm about my waist, Feed on my cherry lips above.

Alas, my blush and bloom will fade, And I shall lose my dulcet notes— Then I shall die an old, old maid, And none will mourn Miss Alice Oates._



Of his friendship with Francis Wilson there is no need to write here, for is it not fully set forth in that charming little brochure, in which Mr. Wilson gives to the world a characteristic sketch of the Eugene Field and bibliomaniac he knew, and in whose work he was so deeply interested? But Mr. Wilson does not tell how he was pursued and plagued with the following genial invention which Field printed in his column in 1884, and which still occasionally turns up in country exchanges:

"Mr. Francis Wilson, the comedian, is a nephew of Pere Hyacinthe, the ancient divine. During his recent sojourn in Paris he was the pere's guest, and finally became deeply interested in the great work of reform in which the famous preacher is engaged. His intimate acquaintances say that Mr. Wilson is fully determined to retire from the stage at the expiration of five years and devote himself to theological pursuits. He gave Pere Hyacinthe his promise to this effect, and his sincerity is undoubted."

William Florence, the comedian, was an actor of whom, on and off the stage, Field never wearied. Night after night would we go to see "Billy," as he was familiarly and irreverently called, as Bardwell Slote in the "Mighty Dollar," or as Captain Cuttle in "Dombey and Son." Although originally an Irish comedian of rollicking and contagious humor, Florence had played "Bardwell Slote" so constantly and for so many years that his voice and manner in every-day life had the ingratiating tone of that typical Washington lobbyist. Before his death, while touring with Jefferson as Sir Lucius O'Trigger in "The Rivals," he renewed his earlier triumphs in Irish character, but, even here the accents of the oily Bardwell gave an additional touch of blarney to his brogue.

One of the stories that Field delighted to tell of Florence dates back to 1884, when Monseigneur Capel was in the United States. It related with the circumspection of verity how Florence and the Monseigneur had been friends for a number of years. Meeting on the street in Chicago, the story ran, after a general conversation Florence asked Capel whether he ever spent an evening at the theatre, intending, in case of an affirmative reply, to invite him to one of his performances. Capel shook his head. "No," said he, "it has been twenty-four years since I attended a theatre, and I cannot conscientiously bring myself to patronize a place where the devil is preached." Florence protested that the monseigneur placed a false estimate on the theatrical profession.

"Ah, no," replied Capel, with a sad smile; "you people are sincere enough; you don't know it, but you preach the devil all the same."

"Well, your grace," inquired Florence, with great urbanity, "which is worse, preaching the devil from the stage without knowing it, or preaching Christ crucified from the pulpit without believing it?"

"Both are reprehensible," replied Monseigneur Capel; and, bowing stiffly, he went his way, while Florence shrugged his shoulders a la his own fascinating creation of Jules Obenreizer in "No Thoroughfare," and walked off in the opposite direction, whistling to himself as he walked.

Florence delighted in companionship and in the good things and good stories of the table, whether at a noon breakfast which lasted well through the afternoon or at the midnight supper which knew no hour for breaking up, and he never came to Chicago that we did not accommodate our convenience to his late hours for breakfast or supper. Nothing short of a concealed stenographer could have done these gatherings justice. Mr. Stone footed the bills, and Field, Florence, Edward J. McPhelim of the Chicago Tribune, poet and dramatic critic, and three or four others of the Daily News staff did the rest. The eating was good, although the dishes were sometimes weird, the company was better, the stories, anecdotes, reminiscences, songs, and flow of soul beyond compare. Field, who ate sparingly and touched liquor not at all, unless it was to pass a connoisseurs judgment upon some novel, strange, and rare brand, divided the honors of the hour with the entire company.

In acknowledgment of such attentions, Florence always insisted that before the close of his engagements we should all be his guests at a regular Italian luncheon of spaghetti at Caproni's, down on Wabash Avenue. It is needless to say that the spaghetti was merely the central dish, around which revolved and was devoured every delicacy that Florence had ever heard of in his Italian itinerary, the whole washed down with strange wines from the same sunny land. Florence's fondness for this sort of thing gave zest to a story Field told of his friend's experience in London, in the summer of 1890. The epicurean actor had made an excursion up the Thames with a select party of English clubmen. Two days later Florence was still abed at Morley's, and, as he said, contemplated staying there forever. Sir Morell Mackenzie was called to see him. After sounding his lungs, listening to his heart, thumping his chest and back, looking at his tongue, and testing his breath with medicated paper, Sir Morell said:

"As near as I can get at it, you are a victim of misplaced confidence. You have been training with the young bucks when you should have been ploughing around with the old stags. You must quit it. Otherwise it will do you up."

"Well now," said Florence, as related by Field, "that was the saddest day of my life. Just think of shutting down on the boys, after being one of them for sixty years! But Sir Morell told the truth. The Garrick Club boys were terribly mad about it; they said Sir Morell was a quack, and they adopted resolutions declaring a lack of confidence in his medical skill. But my mind was made up. 'Billy,' says I to myself, 'you must let up, you've made a record; it's a long one and an honorable one. Now you must retire. Your life henceforth shall be reminiscent and its declining years shall be hallowed by the refulgent rays of retrospection.' To that resolution I have adhered steadily. People tell me that I am as young as ever; but no, they can't fool me, I know better."



Whereupon, according to Field, "Joe" Jefferson broke in incredulously: "Just to illustrate the folly of all that talk, I'll tell you what I saw last night. When I returned to the hotel, after the play, I went up to Billy's room and found Billy and the President of the Philadelphia Catnip Club at supper. What do you suppose they had? Stewed terrapin and frapped champagne!"

"That's all right enough," exclaimed Mr. Florence. "Terrapin and champagne never hurt anybody; I have had 'em all my life. What I maintain is that people of my age should not and cannot indulge in extravagance of diet. The utmost simplicity must be the rule of their life. If Joe would only eat terrapin and drink champagne he wouldn't be grunting around with dyspepsia all the time. He lives on boiled mutton and graham bread, and the public call him 'the reverend veteran Joseph Jefferson.' I stick to terrapin, green turtle, canvasbacks, and the like, and every young chap in the land slaps me on the back, calls me Billy, and regards me as a contemporary. But I ain't; I'm getting old—not too old, but just old enough!"

A dozen years with the boys had done for Field's digestion what the robust Florence was dreading after sixty, and to the day of his death, Field, from the rigid practice of his self-denial, pitied and sympathized with the unhappy wight who had received the warning given to Florence, "You must quit training with the boys, otherwise it will do you up." But he had no more obeyed the warning as to coffee and pie than Florence did as to the injunction of Sir Morell against terrapin and champagne.



Another "Billy," William H. Crane, was one of Field's favorites, and the one with whose name he took the greatest liberties in his column of "Sharps and Flats." His waggish mind found no end of humor in creating a son for Mr. Crane, who was christened after his father's stage partner, Stuart Robson Crane. This child of Field's sardonic fancy was gifted with all the roguish attributes that are the delight and despair of fond parents. Scarcely a month, sometimes hardly a week, went by that Field did not print some yarn about the sayings or doings of the obstreperous Stuart Robson Crane. Every anecdote that he heard he adapted to the years and supposed circumstances of "Master Crane." The close relations which existed between Field and the Cranes—for he included Mrs. Crane within the inner circle of his good-fellowship—may be judged from the following tribute:

_MRS. BILLY CRANE

A woman is a blessing, be she large or be she small, Be she wee as any midget, or as any cypress tall: And though I'm free to say I like all women folks the best, I think I like the little women better than the rest— And of all the little women I'm in love with I am fain To sing the praises of the peerless Mrs. Billy Crane.

I met this charming lady—never mind how long ago— In that prehistoric period I was reckoned quite a beau: You'd never think it of me if you chanced to see me now, With my shrunken shanks and dreary eyes and deeply furrowed brow; But I was young and chipper when I joined that brisk campaign At Utica to storm the heart of Mrs. Billy Crane.

We called her Ella in those days, as trim a little minx As ever fascinated man with coquetries, methinks! I saw her home from singing-school a million times I guess, And purred around her domicile three winters, more or less, And brought her lozenges and things—alas: 'twas all in vain— She was predestined to become a Mrs. Billy Crane!

That Mr. Billy came in smart and handsome, I'll aver, Yet, with all his brains and beauty, he's not good enough for her: Now, though I'm somewhat homely and in gumption quite a dolt, The quality of goodness is my best and strongest holt, And as goodness is the only human thing that doesn't wane, I wonder she preferred to wed with Mr. Billy Crane.

Yet heaven has blessed her all these years—she's just as blithe and gay As when the belle of Utica, and she ain't grown old a day! Her face is just as pretty and her eyes as bright as then— Egad! their gracious magic makes me feel a boy again, And still I court (as still I were a callow, York State swain) With hecatombs of lozenges that Mrs. Billy Crane!

That she has heaps of faculty her husband can't deny— Whenever he don't toe the mark she knows the reason why: She handles all the moneys and receipts, which as a rule She carries around upon her arm in a famous reticule, And Billy seldom gets a cent unless he can explain The wherefores and etceteras to Mrs. Billy Crane!

Yet O ye gracious actors! with uppers on your feet, And O ye bankrupt critics! athirst for things to eat— Did you ever leave her presence all unrequited when In an hour of inspiration you struck her for a ten? No! never yet an applicant there was did not obtain A solace for his misery from Mrs. Billy Crane.

Dear little Lady-Ella! (let me call you that once more, In memory of the happy days in Utica of yore) If I could have the ordering of blessings here below, I might keep some small share myself, but most of 'em should go To you—yes, riches, happiness, and health should surely rain Upon the temporal estate of Mrs. Billy Crane!

You're coming to Chicago in a week or two and then. In honor of that grand event, I shall blossom out again In a brand-new suit of checkered tweed and a low-cut satin vest I shall be the gaudiest spectacle in all the gorgeous West! And with a splendid coach and four I'll meet you at the train— So don't forget the reticule, dear Mrs. Billy Crane!_

And he may doubt, who never knew this master torment, that Field carried out his threat to appear at Crane's "first night" with that low-cut satin vest and that speckled tweed suit, which did indeed make him a gaudy spectacle. But his solemn face gave no sign that his mixed apparel was making him the cynosure of all curious eyes.

Mr. Crane suffered from the same digestive troubles that confined Florence to terrapin and champagne and Field to coffee and pies, and so the state of his health was a constant source of paragraphic sympathy in "Sharps and Flats." In such paragraphs the actor and President Cleveland were often represented as fellow-fishermen at Buzzard's Bay—Crane's summer home being at Cohasset. How they were associated is illustrated in the following casual item:

Mr. William H. Crane, the actor, is looking unusually robust this autumn. He seems to have recovered entirely from the malady which made life a burden to him for several years. He thought there was something the matter with his liver. Last July he put in a good share of his time blue-fishing with Grover Cleveland. One day they ran out of bait.

"Wonder if they'd bite at liver?" asked Crane.

"They love it," answered Cleveland.

So without further ado Crane out with his penknife, amputated his liver, and minced it up for bait. He hasn't had a sick day since.

By way of introduction to a few words respecting the close, quizzical, and always sincere friendship that existed between Field and Helena Modjeska, the following invention of March 29th, 1884, may serve to indicate the blithesome spirit with which he tortured facts when racketting around for something to add to the bewilderment of his readers and his own relaxation:

A letter from Mr. William H. Crane imparts some interesting gossip touching the Cincinnati dramatic festival. It says that an agreeable surprise awaits the patrons of the festival in an interchange of parts between Madame Modjeska and Mr. Stuart Robson, the comedian; that is to say, Modjeska will take Mr. Robson's place in the "Two Dromios," and Robson will take Madame Modjeska's place in the great emotional play of "Camille." It is well known that Modjeska has a penchant for masculine roles, and her success as Rosalind and Viola leaves no room for doubt that she will give great satisfaction in the "Comedy of Errors." Mr. Robson has never liked female roles, but his falsetto voice, his slender figure, his smooth, rosy face, and his graceful, effeminate manners qualify him to a remarkable degree for the impersonation of feminine characters. Moreover, his long residence in Paris has given him a thorough appreciation and elaborate knowledge of those characteristics, which must be understood ere one can delineate and portray the subtleties of Camille as they should be given. Those who anticipate a farcical treatment of Dumas's creation at Mr. Robson's hands will be most wofully surprised when they come to witness and hear his artistic presentation of the most remarkable of emotional roles.



Elsewhere I have referred to the roguish pleasure Field took in ascribing the authorship of "The Wanderer" to Helena Modjeska. That was before he came to Chicago, and seemed to be the overture to a friendship that continued to exchange its favors and tokens of affection to the close of his life. The doings of the Madame and Count Bozenta, her always vivacious and enjoyable husband, were perennial subjects for Field's kindliest paragraphs. As he says, he was a great theatre-goer, but Field became a constant one when "Modjesky" came to town. Her Camille—a character in which she was not excelled by the great Bernhardt herself—had a remarkable vogue in the early eighties. She imparted to its impersonation the subtle charm of her own sweet womanliness, which served to excuse Armand's infatuation and as far as possible lifted the play out of its unwholesome atmosphere of French immorality to the plane of romantic devotion and self-sacrifice. Her Camille seemed a victim of remorseless destiny, a pure soul struggling amid inexorable circumstances that racked and cajoled a diseased and suffering body into the maelstrom of sin.

Field was so constituted that, without this saving grace of womanliness, the presentation of Camille, with all its hectic surroundings, would have repelled him. He did not care to see Mademoiselle Bernhardt a second time in the role, and he fled from the powerful and fascinating portrayal of pulmonary emotion which initiated the audiences of Clara Morris into the terrors of tubercular disease. Night after night, when Modjeska played Camille, Field would occupy a front seat or a box. When so seated that his presence could not be overlooked from the stage, he was wont to divert Camille from her woes with the by-play of his mobile features. Wherever he sat, his large, white, solemn visage had a fascination for Madame Modjeska, and from the time she caught sight of it until Camille settled back lifeless in the final scene, she played "at him." He repaid this tribute by distorting his face in agony when Camille was light-hearted, and by breaking into noiseless merriment as her woes were causing handkerchiefs to flutter throughout the audience. When we went to visit her next day, as we often did, she scarcely ever failed to reproach him in some such fashion as: "Ah, Meester Fielt, why will you seet in the box and talk with your overcoat on the chair to make Camille laugh who is dying on the stage? Ah, Meester Fielt, you are a very bad man, but I lof you, don't we, Charlie?" And the count always stopped rolling a cigarette long enough to acknowledge that Field was their dearest friend and that they both loved him, no matter what he did. Next to his wife, the count was devoted to politics, which he discusses with all the warmth and gesticulations of a Frenchman and the intelligence of a Polish-American patriot.



If there were any other visitors present, Modjeska always insisted on Field's giving his imitation of herself in Camille, in which he rendered her lines with exaggerated theatrical sentiment and with the broken-English accent, such as Modjeska permitted herself in the freedom of private life. She would give him Armand's cues for particular speeches and his impassioned "Armo, I lof, I lof you!" never failed to convulse her, while his pulmonary cough was so deep and sepulchral that it rang through the hotel corridors, making other guests think that Modjeska herself was in the last stages of a disease she simulated unto death nightly. After Field had added colored inks to his stock in trade, these fits of coughing were succeeded by a handkerchief act, in which the dying Camille appeared to spit blood in carmine splotches. No burlesque that I have seen of a play frequently burlesqued ever approached the side-splitting absurdity of these rehearsals for the benefit of the heroine of "Modjesky as Cameel."

An', while Modjesky stated we wuz somewhat off our base, I half opined she liked it by the look upon her face, I rekollect that Hoover regretted he done wrong In throwin' that there actor through a vista ten miles long.

When Field went to California in search of health, in the winter of 1893-94, Madame Modjeska placed her ranch, located ten miles from the railway, half-way between San Diego and Los Angeles, at his disposal. The ranch contained about a thousand acres, and he was given carte blanche to treat it as his own during his stay—a privilege he would have hastened to invite all his friends to share had his health been equal to the opportunity to indulge in merry-making.



At a breakfast given to Modjeska at Kinsley's, April 22d, 1886, Field read the following poem in honor of the guest:

_TO HELENA MODJESKA

In thy sweet self, dear lady guest, we find Juliet's dark face, Viola's gentle mien, The dignity of Scotland's martyr'd queen— The beauty and the wit of Rosalind. What wonder, then, that we who mop our eyes And sob and gush when we should criticise—

Charmed by the graces of your mien and mind— What wonder we should hasten to proclaim The art that has secured thy deathless fame? And this we swear: We will endorse no name But thine alone to old Melpomene, Nor will revolve, since rising sons are we, Round any orb, save, dear Modjeska, thee Who art our Pole star, and will ever be._

As originally written by Field, the rhymes in the first four lines of this tribute fell alternately, the lines being transposed so that they ran in order first, third, fourth, and second of the poem as it appears above. For the fifth and sixth lines of his first version Field wrote:

What wonder, then, that we who mop our eyes When we are hired to rail and criticise?

It is a question the reader can decide for himself whether his second thought was an improvement. His original intention contemplated a longer poem, but after he had written a fourteenth line that read:

The radiant Pole star of the mimic stage—

Field concluded to wind it up with the fourteenth line, as in the finished version.

Upon the back of the original manuscript of these lines to Madame Modjeska I find this Sapphic fragment under the line—suggestive of its subject, "The Things of Life":

A little sour, a little sweet, Fill out our brief and human hour, meet

He never filled out the blank or gave a clue as to what further reflections on the springs of life were in his mind.

I never knew Field to be as infatuated with any stage production as with the first performance of the pirated edition of "The Mikado" in Chicago, in the summer of 1885. The cast was indeed a memorable one, including Roland Reed as Koko, Alice Harrison as Yum-Yum, Belle Archer as Pitti-Sing, Frederick Archer as Pooh-Bah, George Broderick as the Mikado, and Mrs. Broderick as Katisha. The Brodericks had rich church-choir voices, Belle Archer was a beauty of that fresh, innocent type that did one's eyes good simply to look upon, and she was just emerging into a career that grew in popularity until her untimely death. Archer was a stilted English comedian who seemed built to be "insulted" as Pooh-Bah, while Roland Reed and Miss Harrison were two comedians of the first rank. As a singing soubrette, daring, versatile, and popular, Miss Harrison had no superiors in her day. The entire company was saturated with the spirit and "go" of Gilbert, and fairly tingled with the joyous music of Sullivan. The fact that the production was of a pirated version, untrammelled by the oversight of D'Oyley Carte, added zest to the performance and enlisted Field's partisan sympathy and co-operation from the start. He enjoyed each night's performance with all the relish of a boy eating the apples of pleasure from a forbidden orchard. When the season came to an end, as all good things must, Field, Ballantyne, and I went to Milwaukee to see that our friends had a fair start there. We got back to Chicago on the early morning milk train, and in "Sharps and Flats" the next day Field recorded the definitive judgment that "Miss Alice Harrison, in her performance of Yum-Yum in Gilbert and Sullivan's new opera of 'The Mikado,' has set the standard of that interesting role, and it is a high one. In fact, we doubt whether it will ever be approached by any other artist on the American stage."

It never has been approached, nor has the opera, so far as my information goes, ever been given with the same Gilbertian verve and swing. The subsequent performance of "The Mikado" by the authorized company, seen throughout the United States, seemed by comparison "like water after wine."

On the operatic stage Madame Sembrich was by all odds Field's favorite prima donna. He was one of the earliest writers on the press to recognize the wonderful beauty of the singer's voice and the perfection of her method. He easily distinguished between her trained faculty and the bird-like notes of Patti, but the personality of the former won him, where he remained unmoved when Patti's wonderful voice rippled through the most difficult, florid music like crystal running water over the smooth stones of a mountain brook. Field's admiration for Sembrich often found expression in more conventional phrases, but never in a form that better illustrated how she attracted him than in the following amusing comment on her appearance in Chicago, January 24th, 1884, in Lucia:

It is not at all surprising that Madame Sembrich caught on so grandly night before last. She is the most comfortable-looking prima donna that has ever visited Chicago. She is one of your square-built, stout-rigged little ladies with a bright, honest face and bouncing manners. Her arms are long but shapely, and in the last act of Lucia her luxurious black hair tumbles down and envelopes her like a mosquito net. Her audience night before last was a coldly critical one, of course, and it sat like a bump on a log until Sembrich made her appearance in the mad scene, where Lucheer gives her vocal circus in the presence of twenty-five Scotch ladies in red, white, and green dresses, and twenty-five supposititious Scotch gentlemen in costumes of the Court of Louis XIV. Instead of sending for a doctor to assist Lucheer in her trouble, these fantastically attired ladies and gentlemen stand around and look dreary while Lucheer does ground and lofty tumbling, and executes pirouettes and trapeze performances in the vocal art.

Then the audience began to wake up. The comfortable-looking little prima donna gathered herself together and let loose the cyclone of her genius and accomplishments. It was a whirlwind of appoggiaturas, semi-quavers, accenturas, rinforzandos, moderatos, prestos, trills, sforzandos, fortes, rallentandos, supertonics, salterellos, sonatas, ensembles, pianissimos, staccatos, accellerandos, quasi-innocents, cadenzas, symphones, cavatinas, arias, counter-points, fiorituras, tonics, sub-medicants, allegrissimos, chromatics, concertos, andantes, etudes, larghettos, adagios, and every variety of turilural and dingus known to the minstrel art. The audience was paralyzed. When she finally struck up high F sharp in the descending fourth of D in alt, one gentleman from the South Side who had hired a dress-coat for the occasion broke forth in a hearty "Brava!" This encouraged a resident of the North Side to shout "Bravissimo," and then several dudes from the Blue Island district raised the cry of "Bong," "Tray beang," and "Brava!"

The applause became universal—it spread like wild-fire. The vast audience seemed crazed with delight and enthusiasm. And it argues volumes for the culture of our enterprising and fair city that not one word of English was heard among the encouraging and approving shouts that were hurled at the smiling prima donna. Even the pork merchants and the grain dealers in the family circle vied with each other in hoarsely wafting Italian words of cheer at the triumphant Sembrich. French was hardly good enough, although it was utilized by a few large manufacturers and butterine merchants who sat in the parquet, and one man was put out by the ushers because he so far forgot himself and the eclat of the occasion as to shout in vehement German: "Mein Gott in himmel—das ist ver tampt goot!" It was an ovation, but it was no more than Sembrich deserved—bless her fat little buttons!

Remember, this was nearly twenty years ago. It argues much for the saneness of Field's enthusiasm, as well as for the perfection of Madame Sembrich's methods, that she is still able to arouse a like enthusiasm in audiences where true dramatic instinct and high vocal art are valued as the rarest combination on the operatic stage.

Two manuscript poems in my scrap-book testify that another songster, early in Field's Chicago life, enjoyed his friendship and inspired his pen along a line it was to travel many a tuneful metre. The first, with frequent erasures and interlineations, bears date May 25th, 1894, and was inscribed, "To Mrs. Will J. Davis." It runs as follows:

_A HUSHABY SONG

The stars are twinkling in the skies, The earth is lost in slumber deep— So hush, my sweet, and close your eyes And let me lull your soul to sleep; Compose thy dimpled hands to rest, And like a little birdling lie Secure within thy cosy nest Upon my mother breast And slumber to my lullaby; So hushaby, oh, hushaby.

The moon is singing to the star The little song I sing to you, The father Sun has strayed afar— As baby's sire is straying, too, And so the loving mother moon Sings to the little star on high, And as she sings, her gentle tune Is borne to me, and thus I croon To thee, my sweet, that lullaby Of hushaby, oh, hushaby.

There is a little one asleep That does not hear his mother's song, But angel-watchers as I weep Surround his grave the night-tide long; And as I sing, my sweet, to you, Oh, would the lullaby I sing— The same sweet lullaby he knew When slumbering on this bosom, too— Were borne to him on angel wing! So hushaby, oh, hushaby._

The second of these songs bears the same title as one of Field's favorite tales, and is inscribed, "To Jessie Bartlett Davis on the first anniversary of her little boy's birth, October 6th, 1884":

_THE SINGER MOTHER

A Singer sang a glorious song So grandly clear and subtly sweet, That, with huzzas, the listening throng Cast down their tributes at her feet.

The Singer heard their shouts the while, But her serene and haughty face Was lighted by no flattered smile Provoked by homage in that place.

The Singer sang that night again In mother tones, tender and deep, Not to the public ear, but when She rocked her little one to sleep.

The song we bless through all the years As memory's holiest, sweetest thing, Instinct with pathos and with tears— The song that mothers always sing.

So tuneful was the lullaby The mother sang, her little child Cooed, oh! so sweetly in reply, Stretched forth its dimpled hands and smiled.

The Singer crooning there above The cradle where her darling lay Snatched to her breast her smiling love And sang his soul to dreams away.

Oh, mother-love, that knows no guile, That's deaf to flatt'ry, blind to art, A dimpled hand hath wooed thy smile— A baby's cooing touched thy heart._



Lest my readers should conclude from these early specimens of Field's fondness for lilting lullabies that the gentler sex and "mother love" blinded him to the manly attractions and true worth of his own sex, let the following never-to-be-forgotten ode to the waistcoat of the papa of the hero of the two preceding songs bear witness. Mr. Davis has been a manager of first-class theatres and theatrical companies for a score of years, and there are thousands to testify that in the rhymes that follow Field has done no more than justice to the amazing "confections" in wearing apparel he affected in the days when we were boys together:

_Of waistcoats there are divers kinds, from those severely chaste To those with fiery colors dight or with fair figures traced: Those that high as liver-pads and chest-protectors serve, While others proudly sweep away in a substomachic curve, But the grandest thing in waistcoats in the streets in this great and wondrous west Is that which folks are wont to call the Will J. Davis vest!

This paragon of comeliness is cut nor low nor high But just enough of both to show a bright imported tie: Bound neatly with the choicest silks its lappets wave-like roll, While a watch-chain dangles sprucely from the proper buttonhole And a certain sensuous languor is ineffably expressed In the contour and the mise en scene of the Will J. Davis vest.

Its texture is of softest silk: Its colors, ah, how vain The task to name the splendid hues that in that vest obtain! Go, view the rainbow and recount the glories of the sight And number all the radiances that in its glow unite, And then, when they are counted, with pride be it confessed They're nil beside the splendor of the Will J. Davis vest.

Sometimes the gorgeous pattern is a sportive pumpkin vine, At other times the lily and the ivy intertwine: And then again the ground is white with purple polka dots Or else a dainty lavender with red congestive spots— In short, there is no color, hue, or shade you could suggest That doesn't in due time occur in a Will J. Davis vest.

Now William is not handsome—he's told he's just like me. And in one respect I think he is, for he's as good as good can be! Yet, while I find my chances with the girls are precious slim, The women-folks go wildly galivanting after him: And after serious study of the problem I have guessed That the secret of this frenzy is the Will J. Davis vest.

I've stood in Colorado and looked on peaks of snow While prisoned torrents made their moan two thousand feet below: The Simplon pass and prodigies Vesuvian have I done, And gazed in rock-bound Norway upon the midnight sun— Yet at no time such wonderment, such transports filled my breast As when I fixed my orbs upon a Will J. Davis vest.

All vainly have I hunted this worldly sphere around For a waistcoat like that waistcoat, but that waistcoat can't be found! The Frenchman shrugs his shoulders and the German answers "nein," When I try the haberdasheries on the Seine and on the Rhine, And the truckling British tradesman having trotted out his best Is forced to own he can't compete with the Will J. Davis vest.

But better yet, Dear William, than this garb of which I sing Is a gift which God has given you, and that's a priceless thing. What stuff we mortals spin and weave, though pleasing to the eye, Doth presently corrupt, to be forgotten by and by. One thing, and one alone, survives old time's remorseless test— The valor of a heart like that which beats beneath that vest!_

Playgoers of these by-gone days will remember the name of Kate Claxton with varying degrees of pleasure. She was an actress of what was then known as the Union Square Theatre type—a type that preceded the Augustin Daly school and was strong in emotional roles. With the late Charles H. Thorne, Jr., at its head, it gave such plays as "The Banker's Daughter," "The Two Orphans," "The Celebrated Case," and "The Danicheffs," their great popular vogue. Miss Claxton was what is known as the leading juvenile lady in the Union Square Company, and her Louise, the blind sister, to Miss Sara Jewett's Henrietta in "The Two Orphans," won for her a national reputation. She was endowed by nature with a superb shock of dark red hair, over which a Titian might have raved. This was very effective when flowing loose about the bare shoulders of the blind orphan, but afterward, when Miss Claxton went starring over the country and had the misfortune to have several narrow escapes from fire, the newspaper wits of the day could not resist the inclination to ascribe a certain incendiarism to her hair, and also to her art. And Field, who was on terms of personal friendship with Miss Claxton, led the cry with the following:

BIOGRAPHY OF KATE CLAXTON

This famous conflagration broke out on May 3d, 1846, and has been raging with more or less violence ever since. She comes of a famous family, being a lineal descendant of the furnace mentioned in scriptural history as having been heated seven times hotter than it could be heated, in honor of the tripartite alliance of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. One of her most illustrious ancestors performed in Rome on the occasion of the Emperor Nero's famous violin obligato, and subsequently appeared in London when a large part of that large metropolis succumbed to the fiery element. This artist is known and respected in every community where there is a fire department, and the lurid flames of her genius, the burning eloquence of her elocution, and the calorific glow of her consummate art have acquired her fame, wherever the enterprising insurance agent has penetrated. Mrs. O'Leary's cow vainly sought to rob her of much of her glory, but through the fiery ordeal of jealousy, envy, and persecution, has our heroine passed, till, from an incipient blaze, she has swelled into the most magnificent holocaust the world has ever known. And it is not alone in her profession that this gifted adustion has amazed and benefited an incinerated public: to her the world is indebted for the many fire-escapes, life-preservers, salamander safes, improved pompier ladders, play-house exits, standpipes, and Babcock extinguishers of modern times. In paying ardent homage, therefore, to this incandescent crematory this week, let us recognize her not only as the reigning queen of ignition, diathermancy, and transcalency, but also as the promoter of many of the ingenious and philanthropic boons the public now enjoys.

This was written in November, 1883, and is worthy of remark as an illustration of how in that day Field began deliberately to multiply words, each having a slight difference of meaning, as an exercise in the use of English—a practice that eventually gave him a vocabulary of almost unlimited range and marvellous accuracy.

The patience of the reader forbids that I should attempt an enumeration of all Field's friendships with stage folk, or of the unending flow of good-natured raillery and sympathetic comment that kept his favorites among them ever before the public eye. When it came Field's time, all untimely, to pay the debt we all must pay, it was left for Sir Henry Irving, the dean of the English-speaking profession, to acknowledge in a brief telegram his own and its debt to the departed poet and paragrapher in these words:

The death of Eugene Field is a loss not only to his many friends, but to the world at large. He was distinctly a man of genius, and he was dowered with a nature whose sweetness endeared him to all who knew him. To me he was a loved and honored friend, and the world seems vastly the poorer without him.

Of what singular materials and contradictory natures was their friendship compact. From the day Henry Irving first landed in New York until Field's pen was laid aside forever the actor's physical peculiarities and vocal idiosyncrasies were the constant theme of diverting skits and life-like vocal mimicry. Field, however, always managed to mingle his references to Mr. Irving's unmatched legs and eccentric elocution with some genuine and unexpected tribute to his personal character and histrionic genius. Nat Goodwin and Henry Dixey were the two comedians whose imitations of Mr. Irving's peculiarities of voice and manner were most widely accepted as lifelike, while intensely amusing. But neither of them could approach Field in catching the subtile inflection of Henry Irving's "Naw! Naw!" and "Ah-h! Ah-h!" with which the great actor prefixed so many of his lines. With a daring that would have been impertinent in another, Field gave imitations of Mr. Irving in Louis XI and Hamlet in his presence and to his intense enjoyment. It is a pity, however, that Sir Henry could not have been behind the screen some night at Billy Boyle's to hear Field and Dixey in a rivalry of imitations of himself in his favorite roles. Dixey was the more amusing, because he did and said things in the Irvingesque manner which the original would not have dreamed of doing, whereas Field contented himself with mimicking his voice and gesture to life.

When Irving reached Chicago, Field and I, with the connivance of Mr. Stone, lured him into a newspaper controversy over his conception and impersonation of Hamlet, which ended in an exchange of midnight suppers and won for me the sobriquet of "Slaughter Thompson" from Mistress Ellen Terry, who enjoyed the splintering of lances where all acknowledged her the queen of the lists.

I have reserved for latest mention the one actor who throughout Field's life was always dearest to his heart. Apart, they seemed singularly alike; together, the similarities of Eugene Field and Sol Smith Russell were overshadowed by their differences. There was a certain resemblance of outline in the general lines of their faces and figures. Both were clean-shaven men, with physiognomies that responded to the passing thought of each, with this difference—Field's facial muscles seemed to act in obedience to his will, while Russell's appeared to break into whimsical lines involuntarily. Russell has a smile that would win its way around the world. Field could contort his face into a thunder-cloud which could send children almost into convulsions of fear. There was one story which they both recited with invariable success, that gave their friends a great chance to compare their respective powers of facial expression. It was of a green New England farmer who visited Boston, and of course climbed up four flights of stairs to a skylight "studio" to have his "daguerotype took." After the artist had succeeded in getting his subject in as stiff and uncomfortable position as possible, after cautioning him not to move, he disappeared into his ill-smelling cabinet to prepare the plate. When this was ready he stepped airily out to the camera and bade his victim "look pleasant." Failing to get the impossible response the artist bade his sitter to smile. Then the old farmer with a wrathful and torture-riven contortion of his mouth ejaculated, "I am smiling!"

In rendering this, "I am smiling!" there was the misery of pent-up mental woe and physical agony in Russell's voice and face. There was something ludicrously hopeless about the attempt, as Russell's face mingled the lines of mirth and despair in a querulous grin that seemed to say, "For heaven's sake, man, don't you see that I am laughing myself to death?" Field's "I am smiling!" was almost demoniacal in its mixture of wrath, vindictiveness, and impatience. There was the snarl of a big animal about the grin with which he exposed his teeth in the mockery of mirth. His whole countenance glowered at the invisible artist in lines of suppressed rage, that seemed to bid him cut short the exposure or forfeit his life.

All Field's most successful bits of mimicry and stories were learned from Sol Smith Russell, and very many of the latter's most successful recitations were written for him by Field. They talked them over together, compared their versions and methods, and stimulated each other to fresh feats of mimicry and eccentric character delineation. Many a night, and oft after midnight, in the rotunda of the Tremont House, when John A. Rice of bibliomaniac fame, was its lessee, I was the sole paying auditor of these seances, the balance of the audience consisting of the head night clerk, night watchman, and "scrub ladies."



It may be recalled that Field's "Our Two Opinions" written in imitation of James Whitcomb Riley's most successful manner, was dedicated to Sol Smith Russell, and he for his part put into its recitation a subdued dramatic force and pathos that won from Henry Irving the comment that it was the greatest piece of American characterization he had ever witnessed.

Whenever Russell came to town Field spent all the time he could spare, when Russell was not acting or asleep, in his company. They exchanged all sorts of stories, but delighted chiefly in relating anecdotes of New England life and character. As Russell had for years travelled the circuit of small eastern towns, he had an exhaustless repertory of these, that smacked of salt codfish and chewing-gum, checkerberry lozenges, and that shrewd, dry Yankee wit that is equal to any situation. Between the two of them they perfected two stories that have been heard in every town in the Union where Russell has played or Field read, "The Teacher of Ettyket" and "The Old Deacon and the New Skule House." These were originally Russell's property, and he was inimitable in telling them. But having once caught Field's fancy, he proceeded to elaborate them in a way to establish at least a joint ownership in them.

I wish I could remember the speech against the new school-house. It may be in print for ought I know, but I have never run across it. He opened with the declaration, "Fellow Citizens, I'm agin this yer new skule house." Then he went on to say that "the little old red skule house was good enuff fur them as cum afore us, it was good enuff fur us, an' I reckon its good enuff fur them as cum arter us." Before proceeding he would take a generous mouthful of loose tobacco. Next he told how he had never been to school more than a few weeks "atween seasons, and yet I reckon I kin mow my swarth with the best of them that's full of book-larnin an' all them sort of jim-cracks." Then he proceeded to illustrate the uselessness of "book-larnin" by referring to "Dan'l Webster, good likely a boy ez wus raised in these parts, what's bekum ov him? Got his head full of redin, ritin, cifern, and book-larnin. What's bekum of him, I say? Went off to Boston and I never hearn tell of him arterwards."

Russell's version of the story ended here with an emphatic declaration that the old deacon voted "No!" Field, on the contrary, when the laugh over Daniel Webster's disappearance subsided, and, seemingly as an after-thought, before taking his seat mumbled out, "By the way, I did hear somebody tell Dan'l had written a dictionary on a bridge, huh!"

Field's attentions to Russell did not end with their personal association. Week after week and month after month he sent apocryphal stories flying through the newspapers about wonderful things that never happened to Sol and his family. At one time he had Russell on the high road to a Presidential nomination on the Prohibition ticket. He solemnly recorded generous donations that Russell was (not) constantly making to philanthropic objects, with the result that the gentle comedian was pestered with applications for money for all sorts of institutions. In order to provide Russell with the means to bestow unlimited largess, Field endowed him with the touch of Midas. He would report that the matchless exponent of "Shabby Genteel" bought lead mines, to be disappointed by finding tons of virgin gold in the quartz. Like Bret Harte's hero of Downs Flat, when Russell dug for water his luck was so contrary that he struck diamonds. When he ordered oysters each half shell had its bed of pearls. One specimen will do to illustrate the character of the gifts Field bestowed on Russell "as from an exhaustless urn":

Sol Smith Russell's luck is almost as great as his art. Last week his little son Bob was digging in the back yard of the family residence in Minneapolis, and he developed a vein of coal big enough to supply the whole state of Minnesota with fuel for the next ten years. Mr. Russell was away from home at the time, but his wife (who has plenty of what the Yankees call faculty) had presence of mind not to say anything about the "Find" until, through her attorney, she had secured an option on all the real estate in the locality.

They never had any differences of opinion like "me 'nd Jim."

So after all it's soothin' to know That here Sol stays 'nd yonder's Jim— He havin' his opinyin uv Sol, 'Nd Sol havin' his opinyin uv him.



CHAPTER XIV

BEGINNING OF HIS LITERARY EDUCATION

Before he came to Chicago, pretty much all that Eugene Field knew of literature and books had been taken in at the pores, as Joey Laddle would say, through association with lawyers, doctors, and actors. His academic education, as we have seen, was of the most cursory and intermittent nature. When he left the University of Missouri it was without a diploma, without studious habits, and without pretensions to scholarship. His trip to Europe dissipated his fortune, and his early marriage rendered it imperative that he should stop study as well as play and go to work. His father's library was safely stored in St. Louis for the convenient season that was postponed from year to year, until a score were numbered ere the nails were drawn from the precious boxes. Every cent of the salary that might have been squandered(?) in books was needed to feed and clothe the ravenous little brood that came faster than their parents "could afford," as he has told us. What time was not devoted to them and to the daily round of newspaper writing was spent in conversing with his fellows, studying life first hand, visiting theatres and enjoying himself in his own way generally. All the advance that Field had made in journalism before the year 1883 was due to native aptitude, an unfailing fund of humor and an inherited turn for literary expression. Without ever having read that author, he followed Pope's axiom that "the proper study of mankind is man." This he construed to include women and children. The latter he had every opportunity to study early and often in his own household, and most thoroughly did he avail himself thereof. As for books, his acquaintance with them for literary pleasure and uses seemed to have begun and ended with the Bible and the New England Primer. They furnished the coach that enabled his fancy "to take the air."

His knowledge of Shakespeare, so far as I could judge, had been acquired through the theatre. The unacted plays were not familiar to him. Few people realize what a person of alert intelligence and retentive memory can learn of the best English literature through the theatre-going habit. Measuring Field's opportunity by my own, during the decade from 1873 to 1883, here is a list of Shakespearian plays he could have taken in through eyes and ears without touching a book: "The Tempest," "The Merry Wives of Windsor," "Measure for Measure," "The Comedy of Errors," "Much Ado About Nothing," "A Midsummer Night's Dream," "The Merchant of Venice," "As You Like It," "The Taming of the Shrew," "Twelfth Night," "Richard II," "Richard III," "Henry IV," "Henry V," "Coriolanus," "Romeo and Juliet," "Julius Caesar," "Macbeth," "Hamlet," "King Lear," "Othello," "Antony and Cleopatra," and "Cymbeline."

This list, embracing two-thirds of all the plays Shakespeare wrote, and practically all of his dramatic work worth knowing, covers what Field might have seen and, with a few possible exceptions, unquestionably did see, in the way calculated to give him the keenest pleasure and the most lasting impressions. These plays, during that decade, were presented by such famous actors and actresses as Edwin Booth, Lawrence Barrett, John McCullough, Barry Sullivan, George Rignold, E.L. Davenport, Ristori, Adelaide Neilson, Modjeska, Mary Anderson, Mrs. D.P. Bowers, and Rose Eytinge in the leading roles. It is impossible to overestimate the value of listening night after night to the great thoughts and subtle philosophy of the master dramatist from the lips of such interpreters, to say nothing of the daily association with the men and women who lived and moved in the atmosphere of the drama and its traditions. So, perhaps, it is only fair to include Shakespeare and the contemporaneous drama with the Bible and the New England Primer as the only staple foundations of Field's literary education when he came to Chicago. If this could have been analyzed more closely, it would have shown some traces of what was drilled into him by his old preceptor, Dr. Tufts, and many odds and ends of the recitations from the standard speaker of his elocutionary youth, but no solids either of Greek or Latin lore and not a trace of his beloved Horace.

Now it so happened that all I had ever learned in school or college of Greek and Latin had slid from me as easily as running water over a smooth stone, leaving me as innocent of the classics in the original as Field. But, unlike Field, when our fortunes threw us together, I had kept up a close and continuous reading and study of English language and literature. The early English period had always interested me, and we had not been together for two months before Field was inoculated with a ravenous taste for the English literature of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Its quaintness and the unintentional humor of its simplicity cast a spell over him, which he neither sought nor wished to escape. He began with the cycle of romances that treat of King Arthur and his knights, and followed them through their prose and metrical versions of the almost undecipherable Saxon English to the polished and perfect measure of the late English laureate. For three years Mallory's "History of King Arthur and of the Knights of the Round Table" was the delight of his poetic soul and the text-book for his conversation and letters, and its effect was traceable in almost every line of his newspaper work. Knights, damosells, paynims, quests, jousts, and tourneys, went "rasing and trasing" through his manuscript, until some people thought he was possessed with an archaic humor from which he would never recover.

But Sir Thomas Mallory was not his only diet at this time. He discovered that the old-book corner of A.C. McClurg & Co.'s book-store was a veritable mine of old British ballads, and he began sipping at that spring which in a few years was to exercise such a potent influence on his own verse. It was from this source that he learned the power of simple words and thoughts, when wedded to rhyme, to reach the human heart. His "Little Book of Western Verse" would never have possessed its popular charm had not its author taken his cue from the "Grand Old Masters." He caught his inspiration and faultless touch from studying the construction and the purpose of the early ballads and songs, illustrative of the history, traditions, and customs of the knights and peasantry of England. Where others were content to judge of these in such famous specimens as "Chevy Chase" and "The Nut Brown Maid," Field delved for the true gold in the neglected pages of Anglo-Saxon chronicle and song. He did not waste much time on the unhealthy productions of the courtiers of the time of Queen Elizabeth, but chose the ruder songs of the bards, whose hearts were pure even if their thoughts were sometimes crude, their speech blunt, and their metre queer. Who cannot find suggestions for a dozen of Field's poems in this single stanza from "Lady Anne Bothwell's Lament":

Balow, my babe, lye still and sleipe! It grieves me sair to see thee weipe: If thoust be silent Ise be glad, Thy maining maks my heart ful sad. Balow, my boy, thy mother's joy, Thy father breides me great annoy. Balow, my babe, ly still and sleipe, It grieves me sair, to see thee weipe.

Or where could writer go to a better source for inspiration than to ballads preserving in homely setting such gems as this, from "Bartham's Dirge":

They buried him at mirk midnight, When the dew fell cold and still, When the aspin gray forgot to play, And the mist clung to the hill.

When you have mingled the simple, bald, and often beautiful pathos of this old balladry with the fancies of fairy-land which Field invented, or borrowed from Hans Andersen's tales, you have the key to much of the best poetry and prose he ever wrote. The secret of his undying attachment to Bohn's Standard Library was that therein he found almost every book that introduced him to the masters of the kind of English literature that most appealed to him. Here he unearthed the best of the ancients in literal English garb, from AEschylus to Xenophon, to say nothing of a dictionary of Latin and of Greek quotations done into English with an index verborum. More to the purpose still, Bohn put into his hands Smart's translation of Horace, "carefully revised by an Oxonian." In the cheap, uniform green cloth of Bohn, he fell in with Percy's "Reliques of Ancient English," Bell's "Ballads and Songs of the Peasantry of England," Bede's "Ecclesiastical History," Marco Polo's "Travels," Keightly's "Fairy Mythology," and renewed his acquaintance with Andersen's "Danish Legends and Fairy Tales," and Grimm's "Fairy Tales," and last, but not least, with one of the best editions of Isaac Walton's "Complete Angler," wherein he did some of his best fishing.

It has been a common impression that Field was attracted to the old-book corner of McClurg's store by the old and rare books displayed there. These were not for him, as he had not then learned that bibliomania could be made to put money in his purse or to wing his shafts of irony with feathers from its favorite nest. He went to browse among the dark green covers of Bohn and remained years after to prey upon the dry husks of the bibliomaniacs.

Among the cherished relics of those days there lies before me as I write "The Book of British Ballads," edited by S.C. Hall, inscribed on the title page:

"Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit."

To Slason Thompson from Eugene Field. Christmas, 1885.

This volume Field had picked up in some secondhand book-store for a quarter or a dime. He had erased the pencilled name of the original owner on the fly-leaf and had written mine and the date over it in ink. Then turning to the inside of the back cover he had rubbed out the price mark and ostentatiously scrawled "$2.50." This "doctoring" of price marks was a favorite practice of Field's, perfectly understood among his friends as a token of affectionate humor and never dreamed of as an attempt at deception. By such means he added zest to the exchange of those mementoes of friendship, which were never forgotten as Christmas-tide rolled round, to the end of the chapter. The day has indeed come when it is "a pleasure to remember these things."

The Latin motto on this particular copy of ballads reminds me, among other pleasant memories, that during the year 1885 there came into Field's life and mine an intimate friendship that was to exercise a more potent influence on Field's literary bent than anything in his experience. I have before me the following description of "The Frocked Host of Watergrasshill":

Prout had seen much of mankind, and, in his deportment through life, showed that he was well versed in all those varied arts of easy, but still gradual, acquirement which singularly embellished the intercourse of society: these were the results of his excellent continental education—

[Greek] Pollon d' anthropn idon astea, kai noon egno.

But at the head of his own festive board he particularly shone; for, though in ministerial functions he was exemplary and admirable, ever meek and unaffected at the altar of his rustic chapel, where

"His looks adorned the venerable place,"

still, surrounded by a few choice friends, the calibre of whose genius was in unison with his own, with a bottle of his choice old claret before him, he was truly a paragon.

Substitute a physician for the priest; change the scene from the neighborhood of the Blarney stone to a basement chop and oyster house in Chicago; instead of a continental education give him an American experience as a surgeon in the Civil War, in the hospitals of Cincinnati, and on the yellow fever commission that visited Memphis in 1867, and you have the Dr. Frank W. Reilly, to whom Field owed more than to all the schools, colleges, and educational agencies through which he had flitted from his youth up. When I first knew Dr. Reilly he was Secretary of the Illinois State Board of Health, located at Springfield, and an occasional correspondent of the Chicago Herald. The State of Illinois owes to him its gradual rescue from a dangerous laxity in the matter of granting medical licenses, until to-day the requirements necessary to practise his profession in this state compare favorably with those of any other state of the Union. Shortly after I went from the Herald to the News, as related in a previous chapter, Dr. Reilly changed his correspondence to the latter paper. In 1885 he resigned his position on the State Board of Health, and, coming to Chicago, formed an editorial connection with the News that continued until he was appointed Deputy Commissioner of Health for Chicago. In this last position, which he occupies to-day, I do not hesitate to say that he has done more to promote its health, cleanliness, and consequent happiness, than any other single citizen of Chicago. If the sanitary canal was not his child, it was pushed to completion through the fostering hand of his adoption. The Lincoln Park Sanitarium for poor children, and other similar agencies exploited by the Daily News, were born of his suggestions and were nurtured by his personal supervision. It is impossible, and would be out of place here, to specify what Dr. Reilly has done for the sanitation of Chicago as Chief Deputy in the Health Office. Administrations may come and go. Would that he could sip the elixir of life, that he might go on forever!



On his occasional visits to Chicago, before he came up here for good, Dr. Reilly had become a welcome guest and sometimes host in our midnight round-ups at the Boston Oyster House, and when he made his home here he was taken into regular fellowship. The regulars then were Field, Ballantyne, Reilly, and I—with Mr. Stone, Willis Hawkins, a special writer on the News, Morgan Bates, Paul Hull, a sketch writer who fancied he looked like Lincoln and told stories that would have made Lincoln blush to own a faint resemblance, and Cowen when in town, to say nothing of "visiting statesmen" and play-actors as occasional visitors and contributors to the score. Some insight into the characters of the four regulars may be gained from the statement that Field invariably ordered coffee and apple pie, Ballantyne tea and toast with oysters, Dr. Reilly oysters and claret, and I steak and Bass's ale.

It was during these meetings that Field caught from Dr. Reilly's frequent unctuous quotations his first real taste for Horace. To two works the doctor was impartially devoted, the "Noetes Ambrosianae" and "The Reliques of Father Prout."

He never wearied of communion with the classical father or of literary companionship with Christopher North, Timothy Tickler, and the Ettrick Shepherd. We never sat down to pie or oysters that his imagination did not transform that Chicago oyster house into Ambrose's Tavern, the scene of the feasts and festivities of table and conversation of the immortal trio. But though the doctor enjoyed association with Kit North and the voluble Shepherd, it was for the garrulous Father Prout, steeped in the gossip and learning of the ancients, that he reserved his warmest love and veneration. So saturated and infatuated was the doctor with this fascinating creation of Francis Mahony's, that he inoculated Field with his devotion, and before we knew it the author of the Denver Tribune Primer stories was suffering from a literary disease, to the intoxicating pleasure of which he yielded himself without reservation.

To those who wish to understand the effect of this inspiration upon the life and writings of Eugene Field, but who have not enjoyed familiar acquaintance with the celebrated Prout papers, some description of this work of Francis Mahony may not be amiss. He was a Roman Catholic priest, educated at a Jesuit college at Amiens, who had lived and held positions in France, Switzerland, and Ireland. It was while officiating at the chapel of the Bavarian Legation in London that he began contributing the Prout papers to Fraser's Magazine. These consisted of fanciful narratives, each serving as a vehicle for the display of his wonderful polyglot learning, and containing translations of well-known English songs into Latin, Greek, French, and Italian verse, which later he seriously represented as the true originals from which the English authors had boldly plagiarized. He also introduced into his stories the songs of France and Italy and felicitous translations, none of which were better than those from Horace. His command of the various languages into which he rendered English verse was extraordinary, and his translations were so free and spirited in thought and diction as to excite the admiration of the best scholars. When it is said that his translations of French and Latin odes preserved their poetical expression and sentiments with the freedom of original composition almost unequalled in English translations, the exceptional character of Father Prout's work will be appreciated. Accompanying these English versions there was a running commentary of semi-grave, but always humorous, criticism. Of Francis Mahony's acknowledged poems, the "Bells of Shandon" is the best known. In the Prout papers, while his genius finds its chief expression in fantastic invention and sarcastic and cynical wit, it is everywhere sweetened by gentle sentiments and an unfailing fund of human nature and kindly humor.

"Prout's translations from Horace are too free and easy," solemnly said the London Athenaeum, reviewing them as they came out more than sixty years ago. And no wonder, for Prout invented Horatian odes that he might translate them into such rollicking stanzas as Burns's "Green Grow the Rashes, O!"

That Field, at the time of which I am writing (1885), had quite an idea of following in the wake of Father Prout may be indicated by the following Latin jingle written in honor of his friend, Morgan Bates, who, with Elwin Barren, had written a play of western life entitled "The Mountain Pink." It was described as a "moral crime," and had been successfully staged in Chicago.

_MAECENAS

Mons! aliusque cum nobis, Illicet tibi feratum, Quid, ejusmodi hoec vobis, Hunc aliquando erratum

Esse futurus fuisse, Melior optimus vates? Quamquam amo amavisse— Bonum ad Barron et Bates!

Gloria, Mons! sempiturnus, Jupiter, Pluvius, Juno, Itur ad astra diurnus, Omnes et ceteras uno!

Fratres! cum bibite vino, Moralis, criminis fates, Montem hic vita damfino— Hic vita ad Barron et Bates._

A very slight knowledge of Latin verse is needed to detect that this has no pretence to Latin composition such as Father Mahony's scholarship caracoled in, but is merely English masquerading in classical garb.

Father Prout also introduced Field to fellowship with Beranger, the national song writer of France, to whom, next to the early English balladists and Horace, he owes so much of that clear, simple, sparkling style that has given his writings enduring value. Beranger's description of himself might, with some modifications, be fitted to Field: "I am a good little bit of a poet, clever in the craft, and a conscientious worker, to whom old airs have brought some success." Beranger chose to sing for the people of France, Field for the children of the world. Field caught his fervor for Beranger from the enthusiasm of Prout.

"I cannot for a moment longer," wrote he, "repress my enthusiastic admiration for one who has arisen in our days to strike in France with a master hand the lyre of the troubadour and to fling into the shade all the triumphs of bygone minstrelsy. Need I designate Beranger, who has created for himself a style of transcendent vigor and originality, and who has sung of war, love, and wine, in strains far excelling those of Blondel, Tyrtaeus, Pindar, and the Teian bard. He is now the genuine representative of Gallic poesy in her convivial, her amatory, her warlike and her philosophic mood; and the plenitude of the inspiration that dwelt successively in the souls of all the songsters of ancient France seems to have transmigrated into Beranger and found a fit recipient in his capacious and liberal mind."

That Field caught the inspiration of Beranger more truly than Father Prout, those who question can judge for themselves by a comparison of their respective versions of "Le Violon Brise"—the broken fiddle. A stanza by each must suffice to show the difference:

BERANGER

Viens, mon chien! Viens, ma pauvre bete! Mange, malgre, mon desespoir. II me reste un gateau de fete— Demain nous aurons du pain noir!

PROUT

My poor dog! here! of yesterday's festival-cake Eat the poor remains in sorrow; For when next a repast you and I shall make, It must be on brown bread, which, for charity's sake, Your master must beg or borrow.

FIELD

There, there, poor dog, my faithful friend, Pay you no heed unto my sorrow: But feast to-day while yet we may,— Who knows but we shall starve to-morrow!

The credit for verbal literalness of translation is with Prout, but the spirit of the fiddler of Beranger glows through the free rendition of Field.



The reader of Eugene Field's works will find scant acknowledgment of his indebtedness to Father Francis Mahony, but there are many expressions of his love and admiration for the friend who introduced him to the scholar, wit, and philosopher, by whose ways of life and work his own were to be so shaped and tinged. Among these my scrap-books afford three bits of verse which indicate in different degrees the esteem in which "the genial dock" of our comradeship was held by his associates as well as by Field. The first was written in honor of the doctor's silver wedding:

_TO DR. FRANK W. REILLY

If I were rich enough to buy A case of wine (though I abhor it!) I'd send a case of extra dry, And willingly get trusted for it. But, lack a day! you know that I'm As poor as Job's historic turkey— In lieu of Mumm, accept this rhyme, An honest gift, though somewhat jerky.

This is your silver-wedding day— You didn't mean to let me know it! And yet your smiles and raiment gay Beyond all peradventure show it! By all you say and do it's clear A birdling in your breast is singing, And everywhere you go you hear The old-time bridal bells a-ringing.

All, well, God grant that these dear chimes May mind you of the sweetness only Of those far-distant callow times When you were bachelor and lonely— And when an angel blessed your lot— For angel is your helpmate, truly— And when to share the joy she brought, Came other little angels duly.

So here's a health to you and wife: Long may you mock the reaper's warning, And may the evening of your life In rising Sons renew the morning; May happiness and peace and love Come with each morrow to caress ye; And when you've done with earth, above— God bless ye, dear old friend—God bless ye!_

The second is of a very different flavor and shows Field indulging in that play of personal persiflage, in which he took a never-flagging pleasure. It has no title and was written in pencil on two sheets of rough brown paper:

_The Dock he is a genial friend, He frequently has cash to lend; He writes for Rauch, and on the pay He sets 'em up three times a day. Oh, how serenely I would mock My creditors, if I were Dock.

The Cowen is a lusty lad For whom the women-folks go mad; He has a girl in every block— Herein, methinks, he beats the Dock— Yes, if the choice were left to me A lusty Cowen I would be.

Yet were I Cowen, where, oh, where Would be my Julia, plump and fair? And where would be those children four Which now I smilingly adore? The thought induces such a shock, I'd not be Cowen—I'd be Dock!

But were I Dock, with stores of gold, How would I pine at being old— How grieve to see in Cowen's eyes That amorous fire which age denies— Oh, no, I'd not be Dock forsooth, I'd rather be the lusty youth.

Nor Dock, nor Cowen would I be, But such as God hath fashioned me; For I may now with maidens fair Assume I'm Cowen debonnair, Or, splurging on a borrowed stock, I can imagine I'm the Dock._

The last tribute which I quote from Field to his school-master, literary guide, and friend is credited to the "Wit of the Silurian Age," and is accompanied by a drawing by the poet, who took a cut from some weekly of the day and touched it up with black, red, and green ink to represent the genial "Dock" seated in an arm-chair before a cheery fire, with the inevitable claret bottle on a stand within easy reach and a glass poised in his hand ready for the sip of a connoisseur, while the devotee of Kit North and Father Prout beamed graciously at you through his glasses:

_Said Field to Dr. Reilly, "You Are like the moon, for you get brighter When you get full, and it is true Your heavy woes thereby grow lighter."

"And you" the Doctor answer made, "Are like, the moon because you borrow The capital on which you trade— As I'm acquainted, to my sorrow!"

"'Tis true I'm like the moon, I know," Replied the poor but honest wight, "For, journeying through this vale of woe, I borrow oft, but always light!"_

But Field's acknowledgments of an ever-increasing debt of gratitude to Dr. Reilly were not confined to privately circulated tokens of affection and friendship, as the following stanzas, printed in his column in the News, in February, 1889, testify:

_TO F.W.R. AT 6 P.M.

My friend, Maecenas and physician, Is in so grumpy a condition I really more than half suspicion He nears his end; Who then would lie on earth to shave me, To feed me, coach me, and to save me From tedious cares that would enslave me— Without this friend?

Nay, fate forfend such wild disaster! May I play Pollux to his Castor Thro' years that bind our hearts the faster With golden tether; And every morbid fear releasing, May our affection bide unceasing— every salary raise increasing— Then die together!_

Finally, Dr. Reilly is the Dr. O'Rell of "The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac," whom Field playfully credits with prescribing one or the other—the Noctes or the Reliques—to his patients, no matter what disease they might be afflicted with. He prescribed them to both of us, and Field took to his bed with the Reliques and did not get up until he had "comprehended" the greater part of its five hundred and odd pages of perennial literary stimulant.



CHAPTER XV

METHOD OF WORK

Although Eugene Field was the most unconventional of writers, there was a method in all his ways that made play of much of his work. No greater mistake was ever made than in attributing his physical break-down to exhaustion from his daily grind in a newspaper office. No man ever made less of a grind than he in preparing copy for the printer. He seldom arrived at the office before eleven o'clock and never settled down to work before three o'clock. The interim was spent in puttering over the exchanges, gossiping with visitors, of whom he had a constant stream, quizzing every other member of the staff, meddling here, chaffing there, and playing hob generally with the orderly routine of affairs. He was a persistent, insistent, irrepressible disturber of everything but the good-fellowship of the office, to which he was the chief contributor. No interruption from Field ever came or was taken amiss. From the hour he ambled laboriously up the steep and narrow stairs, anathematizing them at every step, in every tone of mockery and indignation, to the moment he sat down to his daily column of "leaded agate, first line brevier," no man among us knew what piece of fooling he would be up to next.

Something was wrong, Field was out of town, or some old crony from Kansas City, St. Louis, or Denver was in Chicago, if about one o'clock I was not interrupted by a summons from him that the hour for luncheon had arrived. Although I was at work within sound of his voice, these came nearly always in the form of a note, delivered with an unvarying grin by the office-boy, who would drop any other errand, however pressing, to do Field's antic bidding. These notes were generally flung into the waste-paper basket, much to my present regret, for of themselves they would have made a most remarkable exhibit. Sometimes the summons would be in the form of a bar of music like this which I preserved:



But more often it was a note in the old English manner, which for years was affected between us, like this one:

PUISSANT AND TRIUMPHANT LORD:

By my halidom it doth mind me to hold discourse with thee. Come thou privily to my castle beyond the moat, an' thou wilt.

In all fealty, my liege, Thy gentle vassal,



Or, going down to the counting-room, he would summon a messenger to mount the stairs with a formal invitation like this:

SIR SLOSSON:

The Good but Impecunious Knight bides in the business office, and there soothly will he tarry till you come anon. So speed thee, bearing with thee ducats that in thy sweet company and by thy joyous courtesy the Good Knight may be regaled with great and sumptuous cheer withal.

THE GOOD KNIGHT.

Then out we would sally to the German restaurant around the corner, where the coffee was good, the sandwiches generous, and the pie execrable. If there was a German cook in Chicago who could make good pies we never had the good fortune to find him.



Having regaled ourselves with this sumptuous cheer to "repletion," we would walk three blocks to McClurg's book-store and replenish our stock of English, sacred and profane, defiled and undefiled. I am writing now of the days before Field made the old-book department famous throughout the country as the browsing ground of the bibliomaniacs. After loitering there long enough to digest our lunches and to nibble a little literature, we would retrace our steps to the office, where Field resumed his predatory actions until he was ready to go to work. Then peace settled on the establishment for about three hours. If any noisy visitor or obstreperous reporter in the local room did anything to disturb the "literary atmosphere" that brooded around the office, Field would bang on the tin gong hanging over his desk until all other noises sank into dismayed silence. Then he would resume "sawing wood" for his "Sharps and Flats."

If Field had not quite worked off his surplus stock of horse-play on his associates, he would vent it upon the compositor in some such apostrophe as the following:

By my troth, I'll now begin ter Cut a literary caper On this pretty tab of paper For the horney-handed printer; I expect to hear him swearing That these inks are very wearing On his oculary squinter.

Or this:

We desire to announce that Mademoiselle Rhea, the gifted Flanders maid, who has the finest wardrobe on the stage, will play a season of bad brogue and flash dresses in this city very soon. This announcement, however, will never see the dawn of November 13th, and we kiss it a fond farewell as we cheerfully submit it as a sop to Cerberus.

Field had a theory that Ballantyne, the managing editor, would not consider that he was earning his salary, and that Mr. Stone would not think that he was exercising the full authority of editorship, unless something in his column was sacrificed to the blue pencil of a watchful censorship. Coupled with this was the more or less cunning belief that it was good tactics to write one or two outrageously unprintable paragraphs to draw the fire, so to speak, of the blue pencil, and so to divert attention from something, about which there might be question, which he particularly wished to have printed. Ballantyne, as I have said, was a very much more exacting censor than Stone, for the reason that the humor of a story or paragraph often missed his Scotch literalness, while Stone never failed to let anything pass on that score.