Now, by my sword I swear't, all this venal and base-born rabble shall rue their folly when thou art returned, O nonpareil of all the brave and hospitable! I pray thee bring rich booty from that province wherein thou dost now tarry—crowns, derniers, livres, ducats, golden angels, and farthings. Then soothly shall we make merry o'er butts of good October brewing. Commend me to the discreet and beauteous ladies after the manner of that country, for I have heard their virtues highly praised, it being said that they do sing well, play the lute and spinet and work fair marvels with the needle. I do beseech thee bespeak me fair unto the grand seneschal, Sir Barbour, and thy joyous and courteous host, Sir Walter. In sooth it is a devilry how I do miss you. Thy friend and slave in sweetness and humility,
THE GOOD KNIGHT.
December 29th, 1885.
CHAPTER IV
MORE LETTERS
In the fall and winter of 1885-86 I succeeded in inducing Field to take the only form of exercise he was ever known voluntarily to indulge. While his column of "Sharps and Flats" to the end bore almost daily testimony to his enthusiastic devotion to the national game and of his critical familiarity with its fine points and leading exponents, he was never known to bat or throw a ball. He never wearied of singing the praises in prose and verse of Michael J. Kelly, who for many years was the star of the celebrated "White Stockings" of Chicago when it won the National League pennant year after year. Nor did he cease to revile the Chicago base-ball management when it transferred "King Kel" to the Boston club for the then unheard-of premium of $10,000. When the base-ball season was at its height his column would bristle with the proofs of his vivid interest in it. I have known it on one day to contain over a score of paragraphs relating to the national game, encouraging the home nine or lampooning the rival club with all the personal vivacity of a sporting reporter writing for a country weekly. Interspersed among these notes would be many an odorous comparison like this, printed June 28th, 1888:
Benjamin Harrison is a good, honest, patriotic man, and we like him. But he never stole second base in all his life and he could not swat Mickey Welch's down curves over the left-field fence. Therefore we say again, as we have said many times before, that much as we revere Benjamin Harrison's purity and amiability, we cannot but accord the tribute of our sincerest admiration, to that paragon of American manhood, Michael J. Kelly.
So when Kelly essayed to change the scene of his labors from the diamond to the melodramatic stage in 1893 it is not surprising to find that Field, in a semi-humorous and semi-serious vein, thus applauded and approved his choice:
Surprise is expressed in certain quarters because Mike Kelly, the base-ball virtuoso, has made a hit upon the dramatic stage. The error into which many people have fallen is in supposing that Kelly was simply a clever base-ball machine. He is very much more than this: he is an unusually bright and intelligent man. As a class, base-ball professionals are either dull brutes or ribald brutes; ignorance as dense as Egyptian darkness has seemed to constitute one of the essentials to successful base-ball playing, and the average professional occupies an intellectual plane hardly above that of the average stall-fed ox or the fat pig at a country fair. Mike Kelly stands pre-eminent in his profession; no other base-ball player approaches him. He is in every way qualified for a better career than that which is bounded on one side by the bleaching boards, and on the other by the bar-room. Of course he is a good actor. He is too smart to attempt anything at which he does not excel.
But I have been diverted from telling of the sport in which Field was an active participant by the recollection of his critical and literary expertness in the great game in which he never took an active part. Once when Melville Stone was asked what was his dearest wish at that instant, he replied, "to beat Field and Thompson bowling." This was in the days before bowling was the fashionable winter sport it has since become. The alleys in Chicago in 1885 were neither numerous nor in first-class condition; but after Field once discovered that he had a special knack with the finger-balls we hunted them up and tested most of them. After a while we settled down on the alleys under Slosson's billiard-room on Monroe Street for our afternoon games and on the Superior Alleys on North Clark Street on the evenings when it was my turn to walk home with "Gene." Rolling together we were scarcely ever overmatched, and he was the better man of the two. He rolled a slow, insinuating ball. It appeared to amble aimlessly down the alley, threatening to stop or to sidle off into the gutter for repose. But it generally had enough momentum and direction to reach the centre pin quartering, which thereupon, with its nine brothers, seemed suddenly smitten with the panic so dear to the bowler's heart. I never knew another bowler so quick to discover the tricks and peculiarities of an alley or so crafty to master and profit by them. Whenever the hour was ripe for a game Field would send the boy with some such taunt or challenge as is shown in the accompanying fac-simile.