"I took the funds, and all of the clerks left the store that night in a body and proceeded up Broadway to the corner of Chambers Street. We then agreed to go into a large, well-known oyster-saloon in the basement. The clerks at once voted unanimously that we should have an oyster supper, and that the treasurer should pay from this fund the expense of the supper, which was done. Then there was a long debate as to what charity the balance should be given to. At last it was unanimously resolved that there was no such charity in the city or State of New York as the clerks of A. T. Stewart & Co., and that Mr. Field, the treasurer, should return to each clerk the exact amount of his fines, less his proportion of the supper. This occupied until nearly or quite daylight. "Some one of the clerks or waiters told Mr. Stewart of what had occurred, and we were all requested to remain at the store the next evening after business hours, when Mr. Stewart called me up and asked me to give him an account of what had been done with the funds paid to me the previous evening. I told him the exact truth in regard to the matter, when he dismissed us, saying that in the future he should be very careful that the firm selected the object of charity that this fund was given to." At a dinner at the Union League Club on October 26, 1881, Jackson S. Schultz, the beginning of whose acquaintance with Mr. Field has just been referred to, related this incident: "Perhaps I cannot do better than tell you an anecdote that was told me by Mr. Stewart at the great celebration which we had at the Metropolitan Hotel after the laying of the Atlantic cable. He said to me, 'Perhaps you don't know that I have taught Mr. Field all the art of telegraphing he knows.' 'No, I am not aware of that, Mr. Stewart.' He said, 'It is quite notorious in our house.' Mr. Field was for a long time a clerk in that establishment, and Mr. Stewart said Mr. Field was in the habit of watching the old gentleman, and by a sort of tick, tick, giving notice to his fellow-clerks of the fact that he was coming, so that every man was in his place, and from that simple idea Mr. Field got the idea of telegraphing, which had made his fortune." The first intimation we find of his having decided to leave Mr. Stewart is in a letter to his father, written on January 8, 1838: "I expect to go to Lee to live with Matthew on the 1st of March. He will give me two hundred and fifty dollars ($250) the first year, and my board and washing." And again, on February 25th, he refers to the proposed change that he intends making: "I have been very busy for the last five or six weeks in the evening attending Mr. Wheeler's school to obtain a thorough knowledge of book-keeping by double entry, so as to be able to keep Matthew's books when I go to Lee.... I have made arrangements with Matthew so that I shall not commence my year with him until the 1st of April."