m a new press. Here, too, his whole
bearing and conversation were so uniformly hopeful, hearty, and
light-hearted, that they deceived all his associates into confidence
that the new home had instilled new life into our friend's gaunt frame.

His column, too, reflected the genial, mellow spirit that played
through all his speech and ways during the early autumn days of 1895.
No other work that he had done so completely satisfied him as "The Love
Affairs of a Bibliomaniac." He was steeped in the lore of the cult. He
had yielded to its fascinations while preserving the keenest
appreciation of its whims and weaknesses. And so the story meandered on
through September and October with an ever-increasing charm of mingled
sentiment and sweet satire; and so it seemed as if it might meander on
forever.

But he did not attempt to write a chapter of this exquisite reminiscing
every day. It was sandwiched in between columns of paragraphs and verse
such as had earned for him his great vogue with the readers of the
Record. He could still surprise and pain the "first literary circles of
Chicago" with such literary notes as:

It is officially announced by the official board of managers of the
National Federation of Realists that Hamlin Garland put on his
light-weight flannels last week.

In the north branch recently was found a turtle having upon its back
the letters P.B.S.--the initials of the revered name of the immortal
Percy Bysshe Shelley.

And he did not fail to keep Chicago informed of the latest Buena Park
news in such rural journal notes as these:

Among the many improvements to be noticed in the Park this spring is
the handsome new collar with which the ever-enterprising William
Clow, Esq., has provided his St. Bernard dog.

A dessert of sliced bananas and oranges is all the rage in the Park
this season. Tapioca pudding is a thing of the past. How true it is
that humanity is ever variable and fickle!

But there was very much less of this sort of thing and of the daily
badinage of the paragrapher than in the days of Field's primacy in that
line. He was reserving all that was freshest, and sweetest, and most
delicate in his fancy for the "Love Affairs."

I spent the summer of 1895 in Evanston, and one night in October, just
as the family was thinking of retiring, I was called to the telephone
by Field, who asked if we had any pie in the house, for he was coming
up to get a slice from the pantry