DEAR MR. SHACKELFORD: There has been no steam in the third-floor editorial rooms this afternoon. Somebody must be responsible for this brutal neglect, which is of so frequent occurrence that forbearance has ceased to be a virtue. I appeal to you in the hope that you will be able to correct the outrage. Does it not seem an injustice that the writers of this paper should be put at the mercy of sub-cellar hands, who are continually demonstrating their incompetency for the work which they are supposed to do and for which they are paid?
Yours truly,
EUGENE FIELD.
January 11, 1887.
To those familiar with the internal economy of newspaper offices it will be no news to learn that death by freezing in the editorial rooms would be regarded as a matter of small moment compared to a temperature in the press room that chilled the printing ink in the fountains to the slow consistency of molasses in January.
To return to the furnishing of the room in which Field did the greater part of his work for the Morning News. Originally it did not boast a desk. A pine table with two drawers was considered good enough for the most brilliant paragrapher in the United States, and, for all he cared, so it was. He had no special use for a desk, for at that time he carried his library in his head and wrote on his lap. I am happy in being able to present in corroboration of this a study of Eugene Field at work, drawn from life by his friend, J.L. Sclanders, then artist for the News, and also the copy of a blue print photograph, on the back of which Field wrote, "And they call this art!"
In explanation of these pictures, both true to life when made, it should be said that, except when there was no steam on, Field almost invariably wrote in his shirt-sleeves, generally with his waistcoat unbuttoned and his collar off, and always with his feet crossed across the corner of the desk or table. One of the first things he did on coming to the office was to take off his shoes and put on a pair of slippers with no counters around the heels, so that they slapped along the floor as he walked and hung from his toes as he wrote.
Why Field always rolled up the bottoms of his trousers on coming into the office and turned them down when he went out, I do not remember to have known. Probably it was partly on account of his contradictory nature, and partly to save the trousers from dragging, for the unloosening of his "vest" was always attended by the unbuttoning of his suspenders to permit of his sitting with greater ease upon the curve of his spine. But why he should have rolled his trousers half way up to the knee passes my comprehension, as the reason has passed from my memory, if I ever knew it.
For a long time a rusty old carpenter's saw hung on the wall of his "boudoir." Beside it were some burglars' implements, and subsequently a convict's suit hanging to a peg excited the wonder of the curious and the sarcasm of the ribald.