At this Madame Nilsson thawed visibly, and promptly appealed to Abbey, Mathews, and Mayer to learn if she had been misinformed. They, of course, fell in with Field's story, and upon being assured that she was in error the madame's anger relaxed, and she was soon holding her sides from laughter at Field's drolleries. The result was that the innocent Republican staff could not get within speaking distance of Madame Nilsson during her stay in Denver. The second night of her visit being Christmas eve, the madame held her Christmas tree in the Windsor Hotel, with Field acting the rôle of Santa Claus and the Tribune staff playing the parts of good little boys, while their envious rivals of the Republican were not invited to share in the crumbs that fell from that Christmas supper-table. "I have been a great theatre-goer," says Field in his "Auto-Analysis." And it may be doubted if any writer of our time repaid the stage as generously for the pleasure he received from those who walked its boards before and behind the footlights. No better analysis of his relations to the profession has been made than that from the pen of his friend Cowen: "At the very outset of his newspaper career," says he, "Field's inclinations led him to the society of the green-room. Of western critics and reviewers he was the first favorite among dramatic people. Helpful, kind, and enthusiastic, he was rarely severe and never captious. Though in no sense an analyst, he was an amusing reviewer and a great advertiser. Once he conceived an attachment for an actor or actress, his generous mind set about bringing such fortunate person more conspicuously into public notice. Emma Abbott's baby, which she never had, and of 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: