Yours in friendship, EUGENE FIELD. The pen-picture in this letter of the delays, intrusions, and interruptions that aroused Dr. Reilly's ire is a fair portrayal of the difficulties under which the editorial staff worked in those days. Field was the only one who could shut himself away from such annoyances to do his own wood-sawing. But when released from this, he delighted to add to the tribulations of his less erratic associates by his never-ending "japes, bourds, and mockages." X CHICAGO, Wednesday, September 22d, 1886. A second letter came from you to-day, dear boy, and I am glad to hear that you are enjoying yourself, although I made mone passing measure when I learned that the caitiff Brunswick knight had forejusted you at tennis. I don't know why the revered Miss Mollie Tillie deems me a capricious man and a fickle; nor can I imagine. You should not suffer her to missay me so grievously. Where could the skeptical damosell have found a person more faithful than I have been in writing each day to her big brother? But if Miss Mollie throws me overboard, so to speak, I shall look to her bustling sister, Miss Nellie, for less capricious friendship. "_Varium et mutabile semper foemina._" Poor old Dock! He comes into the room and leaves his key sticking in the door; to complicate matters still further, he leaves another key sticking in the book-case. When I reproach him with these evidences of a failing mind, he smiles and cries. I wish he were here that I might read these lines to him. Then there is Cowen--but I will not fill this letter with incoherent criminations. The enclosed sketch will explain all. It represents a scene in this office. I have stepped out to post a letter to you. Coming back I peep in at the window and behold baby Dock in his high-chair weeping lustily, whilst baby Cowen has crept out of his chair, toddled to the wall and is reaching for his _bottle_! Betwixt the hysterics of the one babe and the bottle of t'other I am well-nigh exhausted. Come back and take care of your babies yourself! [Illustration: A SCENE IN THE DAILY NEWS OFFICE. _From a drawing by Eugene Field._] I do not see that any effort is being made to get out a better paper. The sheet has been simply rotten, and everybody says so--even the dogs are barking about it. Meanwhile I am sawing wood. I am reading a great deal. Read Mrs. Gordon's Life of Christopher North, parts of Burns's poems, life of Dr. Faustus, and Morte D'Arthur since you left, and hope to read Goethe's poems, Life of Bunyan, Homer's works, Sartor Resartus and Rasselas before you get back. I have about made up my mind to do little outside writing for four or five months and to do a prodigious amount of reading instead.