Colorado) with a thunder-gust of tedious experiences.  The Dock bore the infliction with Christian fortitude and thanked God when Roche left.  In a moment or two thereafter, however, a Kansas City friend of mine called—­very drunk, and not finding me, insisted upon discussing me, my work, and my prospects, with the Dock.  John Thatcher dropped in subsequently, and so the Dock had quite a matinee of it.  By the time I got back to the office the old gentleman was as vaporish as a hysterical old woman and he vented his spleen on my unoffending head.  God knows what a trial that man is to me!  Yet I try to be respectful and kind to him, for age is entitled to that much tribute at least from youth.  Since penning these lines I have read them to the Dock and it would do your soul good to see him squirm.

We are all well.  When are you coming home?  Paying postage on daily letters to Canada is swiftly bankrupting me; then, too, it is a long time since I had a square meal.  But, japes, bourds, and mockages aside, we miss you and will be glad to see you back.  Salutations to the home folk.

  Yours in friendship,

  EUGENE FIELD.

The pen-picture in this letter of the delays, intrusions, and interruptions that aroused Dr. Reilly’s ire is a fair portrayal of the difficulties under which the editorial staff worked in those days.  Field was the only one who could shut himself away from such annoyances to do his own wood-sawing.  But when released from this, he delighted to add to the tribulations of his less erratic associates by his never-ending “japes, bourds, and mockages.”

  X

  CHICAGO, Wednesday, September 22d, 1886.

A second letter came from you to-day, dear boy, and I am glad to hear that you are enjoying yourself, although I made mone passing measure when I learned that the caitiff Brunswick knight had forejusted you at tennis.  I don’t know why the revered Miss Mollie Tillie deems me a capricious man and a fickle; nor can I imagine.  You should not suffer her to missay me so grievously.  Where could the skeptical damosell have found a person more faithful than I have been in writing each day to her big brother?  But if Miss Mollie throws me overboard, so to speak, I shall look to her bustling sister, Miss Nellie, for less capricious friendship. “Varium et mutabile semper foemina.”

Poor old Dock!  He comes into the room and leaves his key sticking in the door; to complicate matters still further, he leaves another key sticking in the book-case.  When I reproach him with these evidences of a failing mind, he smiles and cries.  I wish he were here that I might read these lines to him.  Then there is Cowen—­but I will not fill this letter with incoherent criminations.  The enclosed sketch will explain all.

It represents a scene in this office.  I have stepped out to post a letter to you.