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.