nearly commensurate, as we "opined," with our respective needs and
worth. The third member of the trio, who personally sympathized with
our aspirations and acknowledged their justice, occupied an executive
position, where he was expected to exercise the most rigorous economy.
Moreover, he had a Scotsman's stern and brutal sense of his duty to
get the best work for the least expenditure of his employer's money.
It was not until Field and I learned that Messrs. Lawson & Stone were
more appreciative of the value of our work that our salaries gradually
rose above the level where Ballantyne would have condemned them to
remain forever in the sacred name of economy.

I have said that Field's weekly salary--"stipend," he called it--was
paid regularly to Mrs. Field. I should have said that she received all
of it that the ingenious and impecunious Eugene had not managed to
forestall. Not a week went by that he did not tax the fertility of his
active brain to wheedle Collins Shackelford, the cashier, into
breaking into his envelope for five or ten dollars in advance. These
appeals came in every form that Field's fecundity could invent. When
all other methods failed the presence of "Pinny" or "Melvin" in the
office would afford a messenger and plan of action that was always
crowned with success. "Pinny" especially seemed to enter into his
father's schemes to move Shackelford's sympathy with the greatest
success. He was also very effective in moving Mr. Stone to a
consideration of Field's requests for higher pay.

In his "Eugene Field I Knew," Francis Wilson has preserved a number of
these touching "notes" to Shackelford, in prose and verse, but none of
them equals in the shrewd, seductive style, of which Field was master,
the following, which was composed with becoming hilarity and presented
with befitting solemnity: