opes, purposes, and
eccentricities" of his fellow-man.

After the "pernicious activity" of our newspaper work had "put the
shutters up" against us in Calhoun Place, we transferred our midnight
custom to the Boston Oyster House, on the corner of Clark and Madison
streets, which Field selected because of the suggestion of baked
beans, brown bread, and codfish in its name. Here we were assigned a
special table in the corner near the grill range, and here we were
welcomed along about twelve o'clock by the cheerful chirping of a
cricket in the chimney, which Field had a superstition was intended
solely for him. The Boston Oyster House had the advantage over Billy
Boyle's that here we could bring "our women folks" after the theatre
or concert. It was through a piece of doggerel, composed and recited
by Field with great gusto on one of these occasions, that we first
learned of the serious attentions of our managing editor to Mrs.
Field's youngest sister. One of these stanzas ran thus:

_A quart taken out of the ice-box,
A dozen broiled over the fire,
Then home from the show
With her long-legged beau,
What more can our sister desire?_

But the ladies were never invited to invade the cricket's corner,
where we were permitted to beguile the hours in gossip, song, and
story until the scrub-women had cleaned the rest of the big basement
and "the first low swash" of the suds and brush threatened the legs of
our chairs. Then, with a parting anathema on the business of slaves
that toiled when honest folk should be abed, we would ascend the
stairs and betake ourselves to our several homes. It was at the Boston
that Field varied his diet of pie and coffee with what he was pleased
to describe as "the staying qualities as well as the pleasing aspect
of a Welsh rabbit."

During the first years of his connection with the Morning News, Field
worked without intermission six days of the week, without a vacation
and, except when he transferred his scene of operations to the capitol
at Springfield, without leaving Chicago--with two noteworthy
exceptions. For some reason Field had taken what the Scotch call a
scunner to ex-President Hayes, whom he regarded as a political
Pecksniff. The refusal of Mr. Hayes while President to serve wine in
the White House Field regarded as a cheap affectation, and so when,
through his numerous sources of information, he learned that Mr. Hayes
derived a part of his income from saloon property i