As I have said, there was no such organization as a Saints’ and Sinners’ Club, no roll of membership, and no such meetings as were exploited with such engaging verity by Field.  The only formal gathering of any considerable number of the habitues of the Saints’ and Sinners’ Corner that ever took place was never reported by him.  It occurred on New Year’s Eve, 1890, and everything appertaining to it, down to the fragrant whiskey punch, was concocted by Field, who explained that his poverty, not his will, consented to the substitution of the wine of America for that of France in the huge iron-stone bowl that answered all the demands of the occasion.  About a week before the date all the members whose names had been used without their consent in the Corner in “Sharps and Flats” received a card, on which was written: 

Saints’ and Sinners’ Corner,

December 31, 1890.

Be there 10.30 P.M.  Sharp.

The Sinners turned out in full force.  The Saints, I suppose, had watch-night services of their own, for they were conspicuous by their absence.  Lawyers, doctors, actors, newspaper men, and book-lovers of divers callings and degrees of iniquity were on hand at half-past ten o’clock, or continued to drop in toward midnight.  But if there was a doctor of divinity in that hilarious gathering, I fail to recall his presence.  If one was present, he failed to exercise a restraining influence on the gaiety of the Sinners.  And yet without such presence there was a subtle influence pervading the strange scene, that forbade any approach to boisterousness.  Out in the main body of the deserted store all was dark and still.  The curtains of the show-windows were drawn down, shutting out the intrusive light of the street-lamps.  Field’s guests—­for we all, even George Millard, acknowledged him as host and high priest of the evening—­were assembled in the corner devoted to old books and prints.  The congregation, as he styled the meeting, was seated on such chairs, stools, and boxes as the place could afford.  The darkness was made visible by a few sickly gas-jets and some half dozen candles in appropriate black glass candlesticks that looked suspiciously like bottles.  Field was as busy as a shuttle in a sewing-machine.  He announced that Elder Melville E. Stone would “preside over the meetin’ and line out the hymns,” which Mr. Stone, though no singer, proceeded to do, calling on the mendacious Sinners for brief confessions of their manifold transgressions during the dying year.  The tide of experiences was at its height when, on the first stroke of midnight, every light was doused.  So suddenly and unexpectedly did darkness swallow us from each other’s ken that there was a gasp, and then for a moment a hushed silence.  Before this was broken by any other sound out from the impenetrable gloom came a deep sepulchral voice, chanting: 

  "From Canaan’s beatific coast
    I’ve come to visit thee,
  For I am Frognall Dibdin’s ghost,”
    Says Dibdin’s ghost to me.