But Eugene Field was yet without the stern incentive of necessity that is the seed of journalism. Circumstances, however, were ripening that would soon leave him no excuse on that score for not buckling down to "sawing wood," as for twenty-three years he was wont to consider his daily work. When he reached his majority he was entitled to his share in the first distribution of his father's estate. Before this could be made, Mr. Gray had to dispose of a part of the land which he held as executor of Roswell M. Field. It was accordingly offered for sale at auction, and enough to realize $20,000 was sold. Under the will, Eugene's share of this was $8,000, and he immediately placed himself in the way of investing it where it would be the least incumbrance to him. While at Columbia he had met Edgar V. Comstock, the brother of his future wife, through whom it was that he made her acquaintance. Upon the first touch of the cash payment on his share of the executor's sale, Eugene at once proposed to young Comstock that they visit Europe in company, he bearing the expenses of the expedition. His friend did not need much persuasion to embark on what promised to be such a lark. And so, in the fall of 1872, the two, against the prudent counsels of Mr. Gray, set out to see the world, and they saw it just as far as Eugene's cash and the balance of that $8,000 would go. In his "Auto-Analysis," Field says: "In 1872 I visited Europe, spending six months and my patrimony in France, Italy, Ireland, and England." This is as near the sober truth as anything Field ever wrote about himself. The youthful spendthrift and his companion landed in Ireland, and by slow, but extravagant, stages reached Italy, taking the principal cities and sights of England and France en route. About the only letters that reached America from Field during this European trip (always excepting those that went by every mail-steamer to a young lady in St. Jo) were those addressed with business-like brevity to Mr. Gray, calling for more and still more funds to carry the travellers onward. Before they had reached Italy the mails were too slow to convey Field's importunity, and he had recourse to the cable to impress Mr. Gray with the dire immediateness of his impecuniosity. In order to relieve this Mr. Gray was forced to discount the notes for the deferred payments on the sale of the Field land, and when Eugene and his brother-in-law-to-be reached Naples their soulful appeals for more currency with which to continue their golden girdle of the earth were met with the chilling notice "No funds available." Happily, in their meteoric transit across Europe, they had invested in many articles of vertu and convertible souvenirs of the places they had visited. By the sale, or sometimes by the pledge, of these accumulated impedimenta of travel, Eugene made good his retreat to America, where he landed with empty pockets and an inexhaustible fund of mirthful stories and invaluable experience.