the back seat, full of pleasant chat and the first exciting ordeal was
over. At tea table Mr. and Mrs. Fields sat on either side of father,
and the stories told were different from any I had ever heard. I found
when the meal was over I had not taken a mouthful. Next we all went to
the College Church for the lecture, and on coming home we had an
evening lunch. All ate heartily but me. I ventured to tell one story,
when Mr. Fields clapped his hands and said, "Delightful." That was
food to me! I went to bed half starved, and only took enough breakfast
to sustain life. Before they left I had written down and committed to
memory every anecdote he had given. They have never been printed until
now, and you may be sure they are just as my hero told them. My only
grief was the appearance of my andirons. I invited our guests to the
open fire with pride, and the brass was covered with black and
green--not a gleam of shine.

Often Mr. Fields's jokes were on himself--as the opinion of a man in
the car seat just beyond him, as they happened to be passing Mr.
Fields's residence on the Massachusetts coast. The house was pointed
out on "Thunderbolt Hill" and his companion said, "How is he as a
lecturer?"

"Well," was the response, "he ain't Gough by a d----d sight."

How comically he told of a country druggist's clerk to whom he put the
query, "What is the most popular pill just now?" And the quick answer,
"Schenk's--they do say the Craowned Heads is all atakin' of 'em!"

Or the request for his funniest lecture for the benefit of a hearse in
a rural hamlet!