man's face, nor the roars of laughter that followed, when he suggested
that fifty copies only should be made, and that we should reserve one
each and burn the other forty-eight!

It was a biting cold night and we had been loitering by the way,
stopping to debate each point as it arose--but now we plunged on with
excess of motion to keep ourselves warm, breaking out with occasional
peals of laughter as we thought of our plan to make the publication what
the booksellers call "excessively rare."

Field, elsewhere, has said he did not know why the original intention as
to the destruction of the forty-eight copies was not carried out, but
the answer is not far away. As the time for publication approached it
was found impossible that such and such a friend should be forgotten in
the matter of a copy, and so it went on until it was deemed prudent to
add fifty to the number originally intended to be issued, and that
decision, in the light of what followed, proved to be an eminently wise
one. More than once some to me unknown friend of Field would write a
pleasant lie as a reason to gain possession of the book, and up in a
corner of the letter would be found an endorsement of the request after
this fashion:

What's writ below
I'd have you know
Nor falsehood nor romance is;
It's solemn truth,
So grant the youth
The boon he seeks, dear Francis.

EUGENE FIELD.