I said good-by to him in January, 1888.
“First thing you do when you strike London, get me a job there,” he said. “The pay envelope in this here town is too small for words, let alone a man with a growing family. If I once get into London and establish a reputation there, I can lay down the law to Lawson (publisher of the News) and squeeze this bunch here as they have been squeezing me.”
That wasn’t meant as viciously as it sounded. The News paid as well, or a little better, than the other Chicago papers, but the Chicago newspaper man that made from forty to fifty dollars a week was a crackerjack-first-rater in those days.
One trouble with Eugene Field was that, at his office, he devoted too much time to practical jokes, private versifying and general tomfoolery. So when he had to do his column, his fagged brain needed the stimulant of coffee or whiskey, or he thought it did. And black coffee was usually sent for across the street. Moreover, he was very fond of the theatre and wasted much time chatting behind the scenes, in the auditorium and with the managers in front. In short, he could have done much more work than he did, but it’s doubtful whether that would have increased his compensation, which was as high as the paper thought it could afford—i. e., as low as could in decency be offered to a man with Field’s following.
In New York, I heard of Eugene’s health-troubles off and on, but thought little of these reports since I had never known him otherwise than active and laughing at the ills human flesh is heir to.
If I had known, or suspected, that Eugene had a tendency to lung trouble, I would have written to Mrs. Field warning her against the British climate in winter time, for I had lived in London during several winters and knew what rain and sleet and fog meant there, while Gene’s Chicago friends had not the slightest notion of English weather conditions.
In 1889 I had been in Paris for a couple of weeks, helping to establish an English news service there, when Davison Dalziel, afterwards British M. P., but in our Chicago days editor of the News Letter there, told me that Eugene Field had come to London with his family and meant to set the Thames on fire with his jokes and verses.
“He lives at 20 Alfred Street, Bedford Square,” said Davison Dalziel, “and doesn’t live well, I am afraid. Three boys, a wife and a female relative into the bargain—it’s too much for one poor pencil-pusher, a stranger to London ways.”
To show how Gene was forever hampered by the lack of funds, it is only necessary to point out that his salary was paid over to Mrs. Field week after week, and that Gene had the time of his life persuading the cashier to let him have a few dollars in advance. I don’t know whether the News sent Gene’s salary to Mrs. Field while they were in London. At any rate, what Gene got out of it was entirely inadequate and he had no chance to add to his salary in England.