There is no mistaking the touch of the author of “Mr. Billings of Louisville” in these lines, in which humor and flattery robbed the injunction of Mr. Stone against advancing anything on Field’s salary of its binding force.  Having once learned the key that would unlock the cashier’s box, he never let a week go by without turning it to some profitable account.  But it is only fair to say that he never abused his influence over Mr. Shackelford to lighten the weekly envelope by more than the “necessary V” or the “sorely needed X.”

I have dwelt upon these conditions because they explain to some extent our relations, and why, after we had entered upon our study of early English ballads and the chronicles of knights and tourneys, Field always referred to himself as “the good but impecunious Knight, sans peur et sans monnaie,” while I was “Sir Slosson,” “Nompy,” or “Grimesey,” as the particular roguery he was up to suggested.

It was while I was visiting my family in the province of New Brunswick, in the fall of 1884, that I received the initial evidence of a particular line of attack in which Field delighted to show his friendship and of which he never wearied.  It came in shape of an office postal card addressed in extenso, “For Mr. Alexander Slason Thompson, Fredericton, New Brunswick”—­the employment of the baptismal “Alexander” being intended to give zest to the joke with the postal officials in my native town.  The communication to which the attention of the curious was invited by its form read: 

  CHICAGO, October 6th, 1884.

  GRIMESEY: 

  Come at once.  We are starving!  Come and bring your wallet with you.

  EUGENE F——­D. 
  JOHN F. B——­E.

Of course the postmaster at Fredericton read the message, and I was soon conscious that a large part of the community was consumed with curiosity as to my relations with my starving correspondents.

But this served merely as a prelude to what was to follow.  My visit was cut short by an assignment from the Daily News to visit various towns in Maine to interview the prominent men who had become interested, through James G. Blaine, in the Little Rock securities which played such a part in the presidential campaigns of 1876 and 1884.  For ten days I roved all over the state, making my headquarters at the Hotel North, Augusta, where I was bombarded with postal cards from Field.  They were all couched in ambiguous terms and were well calculated to impress the inquisitive hotel clerk with the impecuniosity of my friends and with the suspicion that I was in some way responsible for their desperate condition.  Autograph hunters have long ago stripped me of most of these letters of discredit, but the following, which has escaped the importunity of collectors of Fieldiana, will indicate their general tenor: 

  CHICAGO, October 10th, 1884.

If you do not hasten back we shall starve.  Harry Powers has come to our rescue several times, but is beginning to weaken, and the outlook is very dreary.  If you cannot come yourself, please send certified check.

  Yours hungrily,