By my halidom it doth mind me to hold discourse with thee.  Come thou privily to my castle beyond the moat, an’ thou wilt.

In all fealty, my liege,
Thy gentle vassal,

[Illustration:  The mark of The Good Knight.]

Or, going down to the counting-room, he would summon a messenger to mount the stairs with a formal invitation like this: 

SIR SLOSSON: 

The Good but Impecunious Knight bides in the business office, and there soothly will he tarry till you come anon.  So speed thee, bearing with thee ducats that in thy sweet company and by thy joyous courtesy the Good Knight may be regaled with great and sumptuous cheer withal.

THE GOOD KNIGHT.

Then out we would sally to the German restaurant around the corner, where the coffee was good, the sandwiches generous, and the pie execrable.  If there was a German cook in Chicago who could make good pies we never had the good fortune to find him.

[Illustration:  TWO GOOD KNIGHTS AT FEAST
drawing and legend: 
  With great and sumptous cheer and with
  Joyous discourse, the good knight
  Slosson regaleth the good knight
  Eugene sans peur et sans monie.
From a drawing by Eugene Field.]

Having regaled ourselves with this sumptuous cheer to “repletion,” we would walk three blocks to McClurg’s book-store and replenish our stock of English, sacred and profane, defiled and undefiled.  I am writing now of the days before Field made the old-book department famous throughout the country as the browsing ground of the bibliomaniacs.  After loitering there long enough to digest our lunches and to nibble a little literature, we would retrace our steps to the office, where Field resumed his predatory actions until he was ready to go to work.  Then peace settled on the establishment for about three hours.  If any noisy visitor or obstreperous reporter in the local room did anything to disturb the “literary atmosphere” that brooded around the office, Field would bang on the tin gong hanging over his desk until all other noises sank into dismayed silence.  Then he would resume “sawing wood” for his “Sharps and Flats.”

If Field had not quite worked off his surplus stock of horse-play on his associates, he would vent it upon the compositor in some such apostrophe as the following: 

  By my troth, I’ll now begin ter
    Cut a literary caper
    On this pretty tab of paper
  For the horney-handed printer;
    I expect to hear him swearing
    That these inks are very wearing
  On his oculary squinter.

Or this: