But it suited Field’s pen and colored inks to a T. He entered into Fortuny’s spirit as far as he dared to go and helped it over the edge of the merely dubious to the unmistakably safe grotesque.  His own Don Quixote was clad in modern costume, from the riding-boots and monster spurs up to the belt.  From that point his emaciated body—­a fearfully and wonderfully articulated semi-skeleton—­was nude save for one or two sporadic hairs.  In the place of the traditional helmet, the Don’s head was encased in a garden watering-pot, on the spout of which, and dominating the entire canvas, as artists say, poised on one foot and evidently enjoying the sorrowful knight’s discomfiture, was the pestiferous pulex irritans.

In the Walters gallery were several pictures of child-life by Frere, in which, according to Mr. Lamed, “every little figure is full of character”—­a fact about which there is no doubt in the accompanying reproduction of Frere’s “The Little Dressmaker,” which by some chance was preserved from those “artist days.”

The completed results of our many off-hours of artist life were bound in a volume which was presented to Mr. Larned at a formal lunch given in his honor at the Sherman House.  The speech of presentation was made by our friend, “Colonel” James S. Norton, in what the rural paragrapher would have described as “the most felicitous effort of his life,” and the wonderful collection was commended to Mr. Larned’s grateful preservation by the judgment of Mr. Henry Field, whose own choice selection of paintings is the most valued possession of the Chicago Art Institute.  Mr. Field testified that he recognized everyone of the amazing reproductions from their resemblance, grotesque in the main, to the originals in the Walters gallery, with which he was familiar.

[Illustration:  THE LITTLE DRESS-MAKER.  (Hand-drawn “SINGER” sewing machine.) From a drawing by Eugene Field.]

It was for this occasion that Field composed and recited his remarkable German poem, entitled “Der Niebelrungen und der Schlabbergasterfeldt.”  From the manuscript copy in my scrap-book I give the original version of this extraordinary production, which was copied in the Illinois Staats Zeitung and went the rounds of the German press in all the dignity of German text and with a variety of serious criticisms truly comical: 

  DER NIEBELRUNGEN UND DER SCHLABBERGASTERFELDT

  (Narratively)

  Ein Niebelrungen schlossen gold
    Gehabt gehaben Richter weiss
  Ein Schlabbergasterfeldt un Sold
    Gehaben Meister treulich heiss
  “Ich dich!  Ich dich!” die Maedchein tzwei
  “Ich dich!” das Niebelrungen drei.

  (Tragically)

  Die Turnverein ist lieb und dicht
    Zum Fest und lieben kleiner Geld,
  Der Niebelrungen picht ein Bricht—­
    Und hitt das Schlabbergasterfeldt! 
  “Ich dich!  Ich dich!” die Maedchein schreit
  Und so das Schlabbergaster deit!