I have spoken of Edgar W.—­more familiarly known as “Bill”—­Nye’s unceremonious introduction to Field’s friendship.  This followed upon what was virtually the discovery of Nye by Field.  The former was what old-time printers described as “plugging along” without recognition on the Laramie Boomerang.  His peculiar humor caught the attention of Field, who, with the intuition of a born journalist, wrote and got Nye to contribute a weekly letter to the Tribune.  At first Nye was paid the princely stipend of $5 a week for these letters.  This was raised to $10, and when Field informed Nye that he was to receive $15 per letter, the latter promptly packed his grip and took the first train for Denver, to see what sort of a newspaper Croesus presided over the order-blank of the Tribune.  When he appeared before Field he was whiskered like a western farmer and his head had not pushed its way through a thick growth of hair.  He was altogether a different looking personage from the bald-headed, clean-shaven humorist with whose features the world was destined to become so well acquainted.

After the incident of the chair nothing would do Field but a dinner at the St. James Hotel, given in honor of Bill Nye.  The affair started after the Tribune had gone to press and lasted all night.  At five o’clock in the morning the company escorted their guest to his room and departed, with elaborate professions of good-will.  They waited in the hotel office long enough for Nye to get to bed, and then sent up cards, requesting his presence down-stairs on immediate business.  But Nye was equal to his tormentors, and the bell-boy returned, bearing a shot-gun, with the message that it would speak for him.  When Nye first visited Field in Chicago, his presence in town was heralded with the following paragraph: 

The latest news from Bill Nye is to the effect that he has discovered a coal mine on his little farm near Hudson, Wis.  Ten days ago he was spading over his garden—­an exercise recommended by his physician—­and he struck a very rich vein of what is called rock coal.  Nye paid $2,000 for this farm, and since the development of this coal deposit on the premises he has been offered $10,000 for five acres.  He believes that he has a great fortune within his grasp.

As illustrative of how impossible it was for Field to keep money, it is related that on one occasion he coaxed F.J.V.  Skiff, then business manager of the Tribune, to advance “just another” $10 to meet some urgent domestic demands.  Scarcely had Mr. Skiff time to place the order in the cash drawer, ere Field stood before him once more, pleading in forma pauperis for “another X.”  He was asked what had become of the ten he had just received.

“Just my luck, Fred,” Field replied.  “As I was leaving the office whom should I meet but one of my old printer boys, dead broke.  The X was all I had, and he told me he had to have it, and he had to.”  It is needless to say that Field got the second advance and succeeded in dodging all impecunious “old boys” on the way home.