her that mince-pie. My permanent
address is care New York Herald Office, 110 Strand, W.C., London.

Speaking of the number of excellent people met in London, Field on his
return told with great gusto his experience at a dinner-party there at
which he was seated between the wife of a member of Parliament and
Mrs. Humphry Ward. The conversation turned upon P.T. Barnum, who was
then in London with his "greatest show on earth." One of the ladies
inquired of Field if he was acquainted with the famous showman, to
which Field said he replied, with the utmost gravity and earnestness:

"From my earliest infancy. Do you know, madame, that I owe
everything I am and hope to be to that great, good man? When he
first discovered me I was living in a tree in the wilds of Missouri,
clothed in skins and feeding on nuts and wild berries. Yes, madam.
Phineas T. Barnum took me from my mother, clothed me in the
bifurcated raiment of civilization, sent me to school, where I began
to lisp in numbers before I had mastered the multiplication table,
and I have been lisping ever since." Field had a peculiar hesitation
in his speech, almost amounting to the pause of an embarrassed
stutterer; and if he related this experience to the British matrons
as he rehearsed it to his friends afterward, it was small wonder
that they swallowed it with many a "Really!" "How curious!" "Isn't
it marvellous?"

This dinner occurred at the time when the trial of several members
of the Clan-na-gael for the murder of Dr. Cronin was in progress in
Chicago. The case was followed with as much interest in England as
in America. When Mrs. Ward learned that Field hailed from that city,
she said to him, "I am so glad to meet somebody from Chicago, for I
am greatly interested in the town. Do tell me, did you know Dr.
Cronin or any of those horrid Clan-na-gaels?"

"I had the satisfaction of telling her," said Field, "that Martin
Bourke (one of the suspects) and I had been very intimate friends,
and that Dan Coughlin (another) and I belonged to the same hunting
club, and had often shot buffaloes and cougars on the prairie a few
miles west of Chicago. As for Sullivan, the ice-man, I assured her
that if that man was convicted it would be a severe blow to the best
circles of the city." "Still more satisfaction had I," Field added,
"in the conviction that my auditor believed every one of the
preposterous yarns I told h