crop of libel suits, and he relied on Ballantyne's Scotch
caution to put a query mark against every paragraph that squinted at a
breach of propriety or a breach of the peace, or that invited a libel
suit. There was no power of final rejection in Ballantyne's blue
pencil. That was left for Mr. Stone's own decision. It was well that
it was so, for Mr. Ballantyne's appreciation of humor was so rigid
that, had it been the arbiter as to which of Field's paragraphs should
be printed, I greatly fear me there would often have been a dearth of
gayety in the "Sharps and Flats." The relations in which Ballantyne
and I found ourselves to Field can best be told in the language of Mr.
Cowen, whose own intimate relations with Field antedated ours and
continued to the end:

"Coming immediately under the influence of John Ballantyne and Slason
Thompson, respectively managing editor and chief editorial writer of
the News--the one possessed of Scotch gravity and the other of fine
literary taste and discrimination--the character of Field's work
quickly modified, and his free and easy, irregular habits succumbed to
studious application and methodical labors. Ballantyne used the blue
pencil tenderly, first attacking Field's trick fabrications and
suppressing the levity which found vent in preceding years in such
pictures of domestic felicity as:

_Baby and I the weary night
Are taking a walk for his delight,
I drowsily stumble o'er stool and chair
And clasp the babe with grim despair,
For he's got the colic
And paregoric
Don't seem to ease my squalling heir.

Baby and I in the morning gray
Are griping and squalling and walking away--
The fire's gone out and I nearly freeze--
There's a smell of peppermint on the breeze.
Then Mamma wakes
And the baby takes
And says, "Now cook the breakfast please."_

"The every-day practical joker and entertaining mimic of Denver
recoiled in Chicago from the reputation of a Merry Andrew, the
prospect of gaining which he disrelished and feared. He preferred to
invent paragraphic pleasantries for the world at large and indulge his
personal humor in the office, at home, or with personal friends.
Gayety was his element. He lived, loved, inspired, and translated it,
in the doing which latter he wrote, without strain or embarrassment,
reams of prose satire, _contes risques_, and Hudibrastic verse."

It is a singular illustration of t