November, 1891.
However, Field did not confine all his attentions to what he called the "book-bandits" to his reports on the proceedings in the Saints' and Sinners' Corner. Scattered throughout his writings from 1887 onward were paragraphs, ballads, and jests, praising, berating, and "joshing" the maniac crew who held that "binding's the surest test," and who bought books, as some would-be connoisseurs do wine, by the label. With all his professions of sympathy with the maniacs, he never missed an opportunity to make merry over what he regarded as their rivalries and disappointments, and he never wearied of egging them on to imitate his own besetting disposition to buy the curio you covet and "settle when you can," as indicated in the beautiful hymn that concludes the following paragraph:
Francis Wilson, the comedian, is the possessor of the chair which Sir Walter Scott used in his library at Abbotsford. A beautiful bit of furniture it is, and well worth, aside from all sentimental consideration, the large price paid by the enterprising and discriminating curio. As we understand it, Bouton, the New York dealer, had this chair on exhibition for several months. Mr. Wilson happened along one day, having just returned from a professional tour in the West. Mr. William Winter, dramatic critic of the Tribune, was looking at the chair; he had been after it for some time, but had been waiting for the price to abate somewhat.
"The Players' Club should have that chair," said he to Bouton, "and if you'll give better terms I'll get a number of the members to chip in together and buy it."
To this appeal Bouton sturdily remained deaf. After Mr. Winter had left the place, Wilson said to Bouton, "Send the chair up to my house; here is a check for the money."
There are rumors to the effect that when Mr. Winter heard of this transaction he rent his garments and gnashed his teeth, and wildly implored somebody to hang a millstone about his neck and cast him into outer darkness.
Horace Greeley used to say that the best way to resume was to resume; so, in the science of collecting, it behooves the collector never to put off till to-morrow what he can pick up to-day. This theory has been most succinctly and beautifully set forth in one of the hymns recently compiled by the Archbishop of the North Side (page 217):
How foolish of a man to wait
When once his chance is nigh:
To-morrow it may be too late—