My wife goes to St. Louis to-morrow and I shall be on the turf for one long week.  Ballantyne, Cowen, Dennis and I went to the base-ball game yesterday—­10,000 people; enthusiasm; slugging game; Chicago fielded beautifully; Chicagos 14, Detroits 4—­that’s all I’ve got to say on that subject.  I have sent a personal to each of the Denver papers announcing that Mr. and Mrs. Peattie are there on their bridal tour.  I have given Peattie divers letters of introduction to Denver folks:  to Dr. Lemen, introducing him as an invalid; to Judge Tall, as a client; to Fred Skiff, as a rich young man anxious to invest in Colorado mines—­etc., etc.  The dear boy will have a lovely time methinks.  Hawkins has moved his desk up into Dennis’s room, and Dock sits here at your table close to me while you are gone.  If he can afford it I do not object.  It is Ballantyne’s plan to keep Hawkins doing paragraphs for the morning and evening papers, and to put Bates (who returned to-day) in the local department as chief copy-reader.  At the theatres this week:  “We, Us & Co.” at Henderson’s; “Alone in London” at Hooley’s; Redmund & Barry at McVicker’s; “Zitka” at the Columbia, and Mayo at the Grand.  By the way, Dr. Reilly’s wife’s brother, Bruno Kennicoot, has taken the management of the new Windsor Theatre on the North Side; that makes another friend of mine among the managers of Chicago.  It is frightfully cold here; real winter weather.  Good-by, dear boy.  Have a good time and make the home folks happy.

  Yours as ever,

  FIELD.

  Post Scriptum:—­Give my love to Miss Mary Matilda and to your
  impetuous sister, Hel’n; also to the sceptical Bessie.

  E.F.

The announcement which Field caused to be made in the Denver newspapers and the letters of introduction which he gave to Mr. Peattie resulted, as Field contemplated, in his having a lively time.  As the conspirator also took the precaution to advise the addressees of these letters and the manager of the hotel of his fell purpose, Mr. and Mrs. Peattie found themselves the victims of insistent and deliberate misapprehensions from the moment they were shown to the bridal suite until they fled from the swarm of land speculators and mining promoters which Field’s ingenuity brought about them wherever they moved in Colorado.  That this was merely a sportive method of showing his real friendship for both Mr. and Mrs. Peattie may be judged from the following verses: 

  MR. PEATTIE’S CAPE

  Oh, pale is Mr. Peattie’s face
      And lank is Mr. Peattie’s shape,
  But with a dreamy, sensuous grace,
  Beseeming Peattie’s swinging pace,
      Hangs Mr. Peattie’s cape!

  ’Tis wrought of honest woollen stuff
      And bound about with cotton tape—­
  When winter winds are chill and rough
  There’s one big heart that’s warm enough
      In Mr. Peattie’s cape!

  It fits him loose about the ribs,
      But hugs his neck from throat to nape,
  And, spite his envious neighbors’ fibs,
  A happy fellow is his nibs
      In Mr. Peattie’s cape.