I have introduced Dr. Poole into this narrative because he was really the dean of the interesting group of men who figured in Field's Saints' and Sinners' Corner. Both Field and the venerable doctor had a slight impediment in speech at the beginning of a sentence or in addressing anyone. When they met after such a paragraph as the above had been printed, Dr. Poole would blurt out in the most friendly way, "O-o-o-oh Field! w-w-where did you get that lie from?" To which Field would reply, "L-i-i-ie, d-doctor! W-w-why, F-f-fred Hild [Poole's successor in the public library] g-g-gave me that!" Then the doctor would ejaculate "Nonsense!" and the conversation would drift into some discussion about books, in which all impediments of speech disappeared. When McClurg's book-store was gutted by a fire some years ago, in which the precious contents of the Saints' and Sinners' Corner were ruined beyond restoration and the many associations that lingered around them went up in smoke or were drowned out by water, the newspapers were filled with all manner of stories about the Saints' and Sinners' Club that had held its meetings there. The Rev. Dr. Gunsaulus, one of the most widely known Saints, spoke of it as an association "without rules of order or times of meeting." "It consisted," said he, in a published interview, "of the most interesting group of liars ever assembled. For ten years that Saints' and Sinners' Corner was a place where congenial fellows met. We simply feasted our eyes on beautiful books or old manuscripts and chatted with each other after the usual fashion of book-lovers. The stories told were sometimes more amusing than profitable." He also told how Field, on one occasion, saved a book which he greatly coveted by writing on the fly-leaf: _Swete friend, for Jesus's sake forbeare To buy ye lake thou findest here, For that when I do get ye pelf, I meane to buy ye boke my selfe. Eugene Field._