Well, Chicago beat St. Louis to-day and, the gods be glorified! Kansas City beat Detroit! as for New York, Boston whipped her day before yesterday and Washington shut her out to-day! now if Detroit will only lose a game or two to St. Louis! I more than half suspect that your home folk will think that you and I are base-ball mad. Stone has bought Gussie a salad set for a wedding gift. I suggested it in the hope that with two sets on hand Gussie might be disposed to give us the old one.... Remember me in respectful phraseology to the belligerent Marie Matilde. Yours as ever, FIELD. V CHICAGO, Thursday evening, September the 16th, 1886. My dear Fellow:--It is presumed that Ballantyne and his bride arrived in this city to-day at seven A.M., but up to this hour (eight P.M.) the bridegroom has not put in an appearance at the office. Cowen is threatening to write to you; it occurs to me that he ought to do something to atone for the vile slanders he has uttered about you since you went away. Stone kept Reilly busy at writing from two o'clock yesterday afternoon until twelve last night. Your friend Werner, advance agent of the McCaul Company, is in town. He inquired for you to-day. I have been reading the memoirs of Dolly Madison and am specially delighted with the letter written by the old Quakeress, Mrs. Hobbs. It is a beautiful letter, and you must read it at your first opportunity. Stone is very much pleased over the result of the County Democratic Convention, the defeat of Dunphy giving him particular gratification. Love to all. God bless you, dear boy. Yours as ever, FIELD. Detroit, 0; St. Louis, 0; game called at end of fifth inning. Chicago walloped Kansas City. VI CHICAGO, Saturday, September the 18th, 1886. This, sweet lad, is the dullest Saturday that has befallen me in many a year. John and his bride are over at Hooley's Theatre watching that lachrymose melodrama, "Alone in London." There is nothing worth seeing at any other house. There is nobody for me to visit with, so here I sit in this box trying to kill the time. I see very little of Cowen. A disreputable looking friend of his from the West is here dead-broke and hunting work; Cowen is feeding and sleeping him _ad interim_, and I think the fellow has an evil influence over our friend.... I am, as ever, your friend, FIELD. VII CHICAGO, Sunday, September 19th, 1886. My dear Old Boy:--This man Reilly whom you have put upon me has just played upon me the most shamefulest trick I ever heard tell of. He invited me out to supper and told me he had only eighty cents. He ordered twenty cents worth and made me scrimp along on sixty cents. When he came to pay the check he produced a five-dollar bill! I never felt so humiliated in all my life. I pine for the return of the sweet friend who seeks not by guile to set limit to my appetite.