whose invented existence he wrote at least a bookful
of startling and funny adventures; Francis Wilson's legs; Sol Smith
Russell's Yankee yarns; Billy Crane's droll stories; Modjeska's spicy
witticisms--these and other jocular pufferies, quoted and read
everywhere with relish for years--were among his hobby-horse
performances begun at that time (1881) and continued long after he had
settled down in the must and rust of bibliomania."

For a long time not a week went by that Field did not invent some
marvellous tale respecting Emma Abbott, once the most popular
light-opera prima donna of the American stage--every yarn calculated
to widen the circle of her popularity. Upon an absolutely fictitious
autobiography of Miss Abbott he once exhausted the fertility of his
fancy in the form of a review,[1] which went the rounds of the press
and which, on her death, contributed many a sober paragraph to the
newspaper reviews of her life.

[1] Vide Appendix.

To the fame of another opera singer of those days he contributed, by
paragraphs of an entirely different flavor from those that extolled
the Puritan virtues and domestic felicities of Miss Abbott (Mrs.
Wetherell), as may be judged from the following "Love Plaint," written
shortly after he came to Chicago:

_The tiny birdlings in the tree
Their tuneful tales of love relate--
Alas, no lover comes to me--
I flock alone, without a mate.

Mine eyes are hot with bitter tears,
My soul disconsolately yearns--
But, ah, no wooing knight appears--
In vain my quenchless passion burns.

Unheeded are my glowing charms--
No heroes claim a moonlight tryst--
All empty are my hungry arms--
My virgin cheeks are all unkissed.

Oh, would some cavalier might haste
To crown me with his manly love,
And, with his arm about my waist,
Feed on my cherry lips above.

Alas, my blush and bloom will fade,
And I shall lose my dulcet notes--
Then I shall die an old, old maid,
And none will mourn Miss Alice Oates._

[Illustration: FRANCIS WILSON.]

Of his friendship with Francis Wilson there is no need to write here,
for is it not fully set forth in that charming little brochure, in
which Mr. Wilson gives to the world a characteristic sketch of the
Eugene Field and bibliomaniac he knew, and in whose work he was so
deeply interested? But Mr. Wilson does not tell how he was pursued and
plagued with the following genial invention whi