The proposed "Noctes," except the set for Field, never materialized. XII CHICAGO, September 28th, 1886. Dear Nomp:--I am just cunning enough to send this to the care of our New York office, for I surmise that it will reach there in time to intercept you. I do not intend that you shall get out of New York without being reminded of that present you intend bringing me for being so good as to write to you regularly whilst you were away. I confidently expect to see you back here next Sunday. On Monday I go to Indianapolis for two or three days, and I heartily wish you were going with me to help bear the expense of the trip. In fact, I am so anxious to have you along that I would cheerfully consent to letting you pay everything. But at any rate I agree to take supper with you at Mr. Pullman's godless hotel the night you return. The Dock invited me out to supper to-night. We went to the Drum. Suspecting that I was going to exceed his capability of payment, he handed me over a dollar--all the money he had. I had the check charged to me and kept the dollar. Whereat the Dock grieves passing sore. I have begun to surmise that my remarks about Literary Life will lead to Miss Cleveland's retirement from the editorship of that delectable mush-bucket. The signs all point that way now. I enclose you a letter to my friend Mitchell of the Sun. Tell him about the Goethe poem. I promised to send him a copy of it when Literary Life printed it. Scrutinize young Kingsbury's daily life carefully. Heaven forefend all the temptations that compass him in the modern Babylon. Give my love to Mr. Scribner. Yours as ever, FIELD. Field's satirical comments on Literary Life, a weekly that sought to make capital by engaging President Cleveland's sister, Miss Rose Cleveland, as its editor, not only led to her early retirement from an impossible position, but to the early collapse of the publication itself. When Miss Cleveland first came to Chicago to assume the duties of editorship Field welcomed her in verse: _THE ROSE Since the days of old Adam the welkin has rung With the praises of sweet-scented posies, And poets in rapturous phrases have sung The paramount beauty of roses. Wheresoever she 'bides, whether resting in lanes Or gracing the proud urban bowers, The red, royal rose her distinction maintains As the one regnant queen among flowers. How joyous are we of the West when we find That Fate, with her gifts ever chary, Has decreed that the rose who is queen of her kind Shall bloom on our wild Western prairie. Let us laugh at the East as an impotent thing With envy and jealousy crazy, While grateful Chicago is happy to sing In praise of the rose, she's a daisy._ CHAPTER V PUBLICATION OF HIS FIRST BOOKS