ad a rule suspending credit when the checks
given in advance of pay day amounted to more than a customer's weekly
salary, he never thought of enforcing it in the case of 'Gene. More
than once some particularly fine story or flattering notice of the good
cheer at Gaston's sufficed to restore Field's credit on George's
spindle. At Christmas-time that credit was under a cloud of checks for
two bits (25 cents), four bits, and a dollar or more each to the total
of $135.50, when, touched by some simple piece that Field wrote in the
Times, Gaston presented his bill for the amount endorsed "paid in
full." When the document was handed to Field he scanned it for a moment
and then walked over to the bar, behind which George was standing
smiling complacently and eke benevolently.

"How's this, George?" said Field.

"Oh, that's all right," returned George.

"But this is receipted," continued the ex-debtor.

"Sure," said the gracious creditor.

"Do I understand," said Field, with a gravity that should have warned
his friend, "that I have paid this bill?"

"That's what," was George's laconic assurance.

"In full?"

"In full's what I said," murmured the unsuspecting philanthropist,
enjoying to the full his own magnanimity.

"Well, sir," said Field, raising his voice without relaxing a muscle,
"Is it not customary in Missouri when one gentleman pays another
gentleman in full to set up the wine?"

George could scarcely respire for a moment, but gradually recovered
sufficiently to mumble, "Gents, this is one on yours truly. What'll you
have?"

And with one voice Field's cronies, who were witnesses to the scene,
ejaculated, "Make it a case." And they made a night of it, such as
would have rejoiced the hearts of the joyous spirits of the "Noctes
Ambrosianae."

From such revels and such fooling Field often went to work next day
without an hour's sleep.

While in Kansas City Field wrote that pathetic tale of misplaced
confidence that records the fate of "Johnny Jones and his sister Sue."
It was entitled "The Little Peach" and has had a vogue fully as wide,
if not as sentimental, as "Little Boy Blue." Field's own estimate of
this production is somewhat bluntly set out in the following note upon
a script copy of it made in 1887:

Originally printed in the Kansas City Times, recited publicly by Henry
E. Dixey, John A. Mackey, Sol Smith Russell, and almost every comedian
in America. Popular but rotten.

The last word is not o