When Irving reached Chicago, Field and I, with the connivance of Mr. Stone, lured him into a newspaper controversy over his conception and impersonation of Hamlet, which ended in an exchange of midnight suppers and won for me the sobriquet of "Slaughter Thompson" from Mistress Ellen Terry, who enjoyed the splintering of lances where all acknowledged her the queen of the lists. I have reserved for latest mention the one actor who throughout Field's life was always dearest to his heart. Apart, they seemed singularly alike; together, the similarities of Eugene Field and Sol Smith Russell were overshadowed by their differences. There was a certain resemblance of outline in the general lines of their faces and figures. Both were clean-shaven men, with physiognomies that responded to the passing thought of each, with this difference--Field's facial muscles seemed to act in obedience to his will, while Russell's appeared to break into whimsical lines involuntarily. Russell has a smile that would win its way around the world. Field could contort his face into a thunder-cloud which could send children almost into convulsions of fear. There was one story which they both recited with invariable success, that gave their friends a great chance to compare their respective powers of facial expression. It was of a green New England farmer who visited Boston, and of course climbed up four flights of stairs to a skylight "studio" to have his "daguerotype took." After the artist had succeeded in getting his subject in as stiff and uncomfortable position as possible, after cautioning him not to move, he disappeared into his ill-smelling cabinet to prepare the plate. When this was ready he stepped airily out to the camera and bade his victim "look pleasant." Failing to get the impossible response the artist bade his sitter to smile. Then the old farmer with a wrathful and torture-riven contortion of his mouth ejaculated, "I am smiling!" In rendering this, "I am smiling!" there was the misery of pent-up mental woe and physical agony in Russell's voice and face. There was something ludicrously hopeless about the attempt, as Russell's face mingled the lines of mirth and despair in a querulous grin that seemed to say, "For heaven's sake, man, don't you see that I am laughing myself to death?" Field's "I am smiling!" was almost demoniacal in its mixture of wrath, vindictiveness, and impatience. There was the snarl of a big animal about the grin with which he exposed his teeth in the mockery of mirth. His whole countenance glowered at the invisible artist in lines of suppressed rage, that seemed to bid him cut short the exposure or forfeit his life.