My work to which Field refers was the collection of newspaper and periodical verse entitled “The Humbler Poets,” which McClurg & Co. subsequently published.

Enclosed in the letter of July 22d was the following characteristic account, conveying the impression that while he was willing to waste all the resources of his colored inks and literary ingenuity on our friendship, I must pay the freight.  I think he had a superstition that it would cause a flaw in his title of “The Good Knight, sans peur et sans monnaie” if he were to add the price of a two-cent postage stamp to that waste.

[Illustration:  A STAMP ACCOUNT.

  Mr. Slosson Thompson.
  to Eugene Field, Dr.

  To 4 stamps at 2 cts—­July 20—.08
  To 1 stamp —­July 22—.02
                        Total .10
  Please remit.]

[Illustration:  AN ECHO FROM MACKINAC ISLAND. With drawings by Eugene Field.]

Shortly after my return from Mackinac, Field presented me with the following verses, enlivened with several drawings in colors, entitled “An Echo from Mackinac Island, August, 1885”: 

  I.

  A Thompson went rowing out into the strait—­
    Out into the strait in the early morn;
  His step was light and his brow elate,
    And his shirt was as new as the day just born.

  His brow was cool and his breath was free,
    And his hands were soft as a lady’s hands,
  And a song of the booming waves sang he
    As he launched his bark from the golden sands.

  The grayling chuckled a hoarse “ha-ha,”
    And the Cisco tittered a rude “he-he”—­
  But the Thompson merrily sang “tra-la”
    As his bark bounced over the Northern Sea._

  II.

  A Thompson came bobbling back into the bay—­
    Back into the bay as the Sun sank low,
  And the people knew there was hell to pay,
    For HE wasn’t the first who had come back so.

  His nose was skinned and his spine was sore,
    And the blisters speckled his hands so white—­
  He had lost his hat and had dropped an oar,
    And his bosom-shirt was a sad sea sight.

  And the grayling chuckled again “ha-ha,”
    And the Cisco tittered a harsh “ho-ho”—­
  But the Thompson anchored furninst a bar
    And called for a schooner to drown his woe._

During the fall of 1885 I was again sent East on some political work that took me to Saratoga and New York.  As usual, Field was unremitting in his epistolary attentions with which I will not weary the reader.  But on the journey back from New York they afforded entertainment and almost excited the commiseration of a young lady travelling home under my escort.  When we reached Chicago I casually remarked that if she was so moved by Field’s financial straits I would take pleasure in conveying as much truage to the impecunious knight as would provide him with buttered toast, coffee, and pie at Henrici’s.  She accordingly entrusted me with a quarter of a dollar, which I was to deliver with every assurance of her esteem and sympathy.  As I was pledged not to reveal the donor’s name, this tribute of silver provided Field with another character, whom he named “The Fair Unknown,” and to whom he indited several touching ballads, of which the first was: