Page:Abroad with Mark Twain and Eugene Field.djvu/230

 had not the slightest notion of English weather conditions.

In 1889 I had been in Paris for a couple of weeks, helping to establish an English news service there, when Davison Dalziel, afterwards British M. P., but in our Chicago days editor of the News Letter there, told me that Eugene Field had come to London with his family and meant to set the Thames on fire with his jokes and verses.

"He lives at 20 Alfred Street, Bedford Square," said Davison Dalziel, "and doesn't live well, I am afraid. Three boys, a wife and a female relative into the bargain—it's too much for one poor pencil-pusher, a stranger to London ways."

To show how Gene was forever hampered by the lack of funds, it is only necessary to point out that his salary was paid over to Mrs. Field week after week, and that Gene had the time of his life persuading the cashier to let him have a few dollars in advance. I don't know whether the News sent Gene's salary to Mrs. Field while they were in London. At any rate, what Gene got out of it was entirely inadequate and he had no chance to add to his salary in England. 226