WHEREIN

  KNIGHTS ERRANT DID COURTEOUSLY
  DISPORT THEMSELVES
  AND ACHIEVE PRODIGIES OF VALOR,

  AND

  MARVELS OF SWEET FRIENDSHIP.

And inside the plaintive story was told in variegated ink in the following lines: 

  One chilly raw November night
  Beneath a dull electric light,
        At half-past ten o’clock,
  The Good Knight, wan and hungry, stood,
  And in a half-expectant mood
        Peered up and down the block.

  The smell of viands floated by
  The Good Knight from a basement nigh
        And tantalized his soul. 
  Keenly his classic, knightly nose
  Envied the fragrance that arose
        From many a steaming bowl.

  Pining for stews not brewed for him,
  The Good Knight stood there gaunt and grim—­
        A paragon of woe;
  And muttered in a chiding tone,
  “Odds bobs!  Sir Slosson must have known
        ’Twas going to rain or snow!”

  But while the Good and Honest Knight
  Flocked by himself in sorry plight,
        Sir Slosson did regale
  Himself within a castle grand—­
  of the Good Knight and
        His wonted stoup of ale.

  Mid joyous knights and ladies fair
  He little recked the evening air
        Blew bitterly without;
  Heedless of pelting storms that came
  To drench his friend’s dyspeptic frame,
        He joined the merry rout.

  But underneath the corner light
  Lingered the impecunious Knight—­
        Wet, hungry and alone—­
  Hoping that from Sir Slosson some
  Encouragement mayhap would come,
        Or from the Fair Unknown._

The drawing in this verse marks the beginning of the transfer of our patronage from the steaks and gamblers’ frowns of Billy Boyle’s to the oysters and the cricket’s friendly chirps of the Boston Oyster House.  The reference to Field’s “dyspeptic frame” is not without its significance, for it was about this time that he became increasingly conscious of that weakness of the stomach that grew upon him and began to give him serious concern.

How Field seized upon my absence from the city for the briefest visit to bombard me with queer and fanciful letters, found another illustration during Christmas week, 1885, which I spent with a house party at Blair Lodge, the home of Walter Cranston Larned, whom I have already mentioned as the possessor of Field’s two masterpieces in color.  Each day of my stay was enlivened by a letter from Field.  As they are admirable specimens of the wonderful pains he took with letters of this sort, and the expertness he attained in the command of the archaic form of English, I need no excuse for introducing them here.  The first, which bears date “December 27th, 1385,” was written on an imitation sheet of old letter paper, browned with dirt and ragged edged.  In the order of receipt these letters were as follows: