By arrangement with the business office, Field’s salary was paid to Mrs. Field weekly, she having the management of the finances of the family.  Field, Ballantyne, and I were the high-priced members of the News staff at that time, but our pay was not princely, and two of us were engaged in a constant conspiracy to jack it up to a level more nearly commensurate, as we “opined,” with our respective needs and worth.  The third member of the trio, who personally sympathized with our aspirations and acknowledged their justice, occupied an executive position, where he was expected to exercise the most rigorous economy.  Moreover, he had a Scotsman’s stern and brutal sense of his duty to get the best work for the least expenditure of his employer’s money.  It was not until Field and I learned that Messrs. Lawson & Stone were more appreciative of the value of our work that our salaries gradually rose above the level where Ballantyne would have condemned them to remain forever in the sacred name of economy.

I have said that Field’s weekly salary—­“stipend,” he called it—­was paid regularly to Mrs. Field.  I should have said that she received all of it that the ingenious and impecunious Eugene had not managed to forestall.  Not a week went by that he did not tax the fertility of his active brain to wheedle Collins Shackelford, the cashier, into breaking into his envelope for five or ten dollars in advance.  These appeals came in every form that Field’s fecundity could invent.  When all other methods failed the presence of “Pinny” or “Melvin” in the office would afford a messenger and plan of action that was always crowned with success.  “Pinny” especially seemed to enter into his father’s schemes to move Shackelford’s sympathy with the greatest success.  He was also very effective in moving Mr. Stone to a consideration of Field’s requests for higher pay.

In his “Eugene Field I Knew,” Francis Wilson has preserved a number of these touching “notes” to Shackelford, in prose and verse, but none of them equals in the shrewd, seductive style, of which Field was master, the following, which was composed with becoming hilarity and presented with befitting solemnity: 

  A SONNET TO SHEKELSFORD

  Sweet Shekelsford, the week is near its end,
    And, as my custom is, I come to thee;
  There is no other who has pelf to lend,
    At least no pelf to lend to hapless me;
  Nay, gentle Shekelsford, turn not away—­
  I must have wealth, for this is Saturday.

  Ah, now thou smil’st a soft relenting smile—­
    Thy previous frown was but a passing joke,
  I knew thy heart would melt with pity while
    Thou heardst me pleading I was very broke. 
  Nay, ask me not if I’ve a note from Stone,
    When I approach thee, O thou best of men! 
  I bring no notes, but, boldly and alone,
    I woo sweet hope and strike thee for a ten.

  December 3d, 1884._