Memoirs of an editor : fifty years of American journalism / Edward P. Mitchell.

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MEMOIRS OF AN EDITOR

A tall, thin, stooping man, with a beard like a California
forty-niner's, and a manner shy and deprecatory. Hi.s
nervousness partly disappeared as conversation proceeded.
I found him extremely well informed. In well-modulated
tones he used the best of English. IHe knew, he said, of a
copy of the Dial for sale in Washington. I could have it
for $50 and it would be ready for me on such and such a
day, if I would call. So I left the shop, wondering a bit
about its strange proprietor.
Returning to Fourth Avenue for my Dial on the day
appointed, I found the shop locked and no sign of life
within. The morning paper explained the mystery of the
furtive bookseller. Yesterday the police had arrested the
notorious Major Howgate, whose defalcation amounting
to hundreds of thousands of dollars of Government money
had astounded the country a few years before, and whose
long pursuit by the detectives of the Department of
Justice had led them to several continents. And the pathetic quarry of this world-wide chase, after many flights
and frights and new disguises, had finally sought safety
in a cellar bookshop, opening a business dear to his soul,
a few steps from Union Square, where he was taken by the
police between the date of his receipt of my order for the
Dial and his expected delivery of the books to his wondering customer.
Eugene Field's visits to New York were too infrequent.,
but they were enjoyed when he came. His ingrained habit
of mystification always accompanied him. He seldom
turned up in The Sun office when he was expected and
always at an hour when lunch or dinner invitations could
be evaded plausibly and gracefully. His Chicago friends

doubtless understood better than we did why it was almost necessary to go after him with a shot-gun in order
to capture him for the most informal entertainment at
table. Perhaps the reason was in the peculiarity just
noted; perhaps it was dyspepsia, which afflicted him
grievously throughout his short life. He refers to that ill