Pacific.  You should have applied for them sooner.  I have always [d] found railway officials the slowest people in the world, and they are particularly slow when it comes to the matter of passes.  Of course you are having a charming time with your home folk; well, you deserve it, and I hope you will make the most of it.  Give my love to them all.  You see I regard myself as one of the family.  Let me hear from you whenever you feel like writing, but don’t bother about it.

  Ever your friend,

  EUGENE FIELD.

Small wonder that even Field’s patience revolted at the self-imposed “business” of writing this letter in five different colors of ink.  The first page, which ran down to the letter “a” in the above, was written in pale green ink; the second, running to “b,” was in black; the third, running to “c,” was in red; and the fourth was a medley of these with purple, gamboge, and mauve to make the six colors.  The fifth page from “d” was completed in plain black.

  IX

  CHICAGO, Tuesday, September the 21st, 1886.

What you say in your letter, dear chuck, is quite true.  The paper has become fairly disreputable of late.  The issue of last Saturday was as base a specimen of daily journalism as ever was inflicted on a civilized community.  Stone (who has returned from Kansas City) says he was disgusted with that Saturday issue, but I have heard him suggest no scheme whereby the dawdling condition of affairs is to be bettered.  The whole staff is demoralized, and I believe that, so far from getting better, matters and things are steadily going to worse.  The outlook is very discouraging.  One sensible thing has been done in hiring Reilly to do regular work.  Under the new arrangement he is to receive forty dollars a week, which Stone considers a big price for an editorial writer, but which I regard as too measley for any use.  Still Reilly is satisfied, for he will be able to do, under the new arrangement, as much work for Rauch (of the State Board of Health) as he has been doing in the past.

Not a word have I heard from my spouse since she went to St. Louis—­in fact, I have never been informed that she arrived in St. Louis.  I thought she might arrive to-night, and so I went down to the station and sat around on the trucks and things like a colossal male statue of Patience.  The train was late, and, when it came, it came without her, of course.

Getting back to the office, I find that Dock has had a de’il of a time.  He had to wait this evening to get some data from Yount for a political editorial.  Yount did not show up until half-past eight; after he had disgorged the necessary information he left the Dock cocked and primed for quick work.  But the Dock had no sooner got fairly started—­in fact, had scarcely reached his first politico medical phrase—­when in came Roche (fresh from his bridal tour through