George could scarcely respire for a moment, but gradually recovered sufficiently to mumble, “Gents, this is one on yours truly.  What’ll you have?”

And with one voice Field’s cronies, who were witnesses to the scene, ejaculated, “Make it a case.”  And they made a night of it, such as would have rejoiced the hearts of the joyous spirits of the “Noctes Ambrosianae.”

From such revels and such fooling Field often went to work next day without an hour’s sleep.

While in Kansas City Field wrote that pathetic tale of misplaced confidence that records the fate of “Johnny Jones and his sister Sue.”  It was entitled “The Little Peach” and has had a vogue fully as wide, if not as sentimental, as “Little Boy Blue.”  Field’s own estimate of this production is somewhat bluntly set out in the following note upon a script copy of it made in 1887: 

Originally printed in the Kansas City Times, recited publicly by Henry E. Dixey, John A. Mackey, Sol Smith Russell, and almost every comedian in America.  Popular but rotten.

The last word is not only harsh but unjust.  The variation of the closing exclamation of each verse is as skilful as anything Field ever did.  Different, indeed, from the refrain in “Wynken, Blynken and Nod,” but touching the chords of mirth with certainty and irresistible effect.  Field might have added, that none of the comedians he has named ever gave to the experience of “Johnny Jones and His Sister Sue” in public recitation the same melancholy humor and pathetic conclusion as did the author of their misfortunes and untimely end himself.  As a penance, perhaps, for the injustice done to “The Little Peach” in the quoted comment, Field spent several days in 1887 in translating it, so to speak, into Greek characters, in which it appears in the volume given to Mrs. Thompson, which is herewith reproduced in facsimile as a specimen of one of the grotesque fancies Field indulged: 

[Illustration:  “THE PEAR” IN FIELD’S “GREEK” TEXT.]

For the benefit of those unfamiliar with the Greek characters, I have retranslated this poem into corresponding English, which the reader can compare with his version of “The Little Peach.”

  THE PEAR

  (In English Equivalent.)

  A little pear in a garden grue
  A little pear of emerald ’ue
  Kissed bi the sun and bathed bi the due,
                    It grew.

  One da, going that garden thro’
  That little pear kame to the fue
  Of Thomas Smith and ’is sister Sue
                    Those tou!

  Up at the pear a klub tha thrue
  Down from the stem on uikh it grue
  Fell the little pear of emerald ’ue
                    Peek-a-boo!

  Tom took a bite and Sue took one too
  And then the trouble began to brue
  Trouble the doktors kouldn’t subdue
                    Too true (paragorik too?).

  Under the turf fare the daisies grue
  They planted Tom and ’is sister Sue
  And their little souls to the angels flue
                    Boo ’oo!