Nor Dock, nor Cowen would I be, But such as God hath fashioned me; For I may now with maidens fair Assume I'm Cowen debonnair, Or, splurging on a borrowed stock, I can imagine I'm the Dock._ The last tribute which I quote from Field to his school-master, literary guide, and friend is credited to the "Wit of the Silurian Age," and is accompanied by a drawing by the poet, who took a cut from some weekly of the day and touched it up with black, red, and green ink to represent the genial "Dock" seated in an arm-chair before a cheery fire, with the inevitable claret bottle on a stand within easy reach and a glass poised in his hand ready for the sip of a connoisseur, while the devotee of Kit North and Father Prout beamed graciously at you through his glasses: _Said Field to Dr. Reilly, "You Are like the moon, for you get brighter When you get full, and it is true Your heavy woes thereby grow lighter." "And you" the Doctor answer made, "Are like, the moon because you borrow The capital on which you trade-- As I'm acquainted, to my sorrow!" "'Tis true I'm like the moon, I know," Replied the poor but honest wight, "For, journeying through this vale of woe, I borrow oft, but always light!"_ But Field's acknowledgments of an ever-increasing debt of gratitude to Dr. Reilly were not confined to privately circulated tokens of affection and friendship, as the following stanzas, printed in his column in the News, in February, 1889, testify: _TO F.W.R. AT 6 P.M. My friend, Mæcenas and physician, Is in so grumpy a condition I really more than half suspicion He nears his end; Who then would lie on earth to shave me, To feed me, coach me, and to save me From tedious cares that would enslave me-- Without this friend? Nay, fate forfend such wild disaster! May I play Pollux to his Castor Thro' years that bind our hearts the faster With golden tether; And every morbid fear releasing, May our affection bide unceasing-- every salary raise increasing-- Then die together!_ Finally, Dr. Reilly is the Dr. O'Rell of "The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac," whom Field playfully credits with prescribing one or the other--the Noctes or the Reliques--to his patients, no matter what disease they might be afflicted with. He prescribed them to both of us, and Field took to his bed with the Reliques and did not get up until he had "comprehended" the greater part of its five hundred and odd pages of perennial literary stimulant. CHAPTER XV METHOD OF WORK