At once Fields threw up his hand, exclaiming: 'You didn't call it that way before.' "Fields' answers come quick and sharp, seemingly by intuition.
Calculations which would require hours to perform are made in less time than it takes to state the question.

The size of the computations seems to offer no bar to their rapid solution, and answers in which long lines of figures are reeled off come with perfect ease.

In watching the effort put forth in reaching an answer, there would seem to be some process going on in the mind, and an incoherent mumbling is often indulged in, but it is highly probable that Fields does not himself know how he derives his answers.

Certain it is that he is unable to explain the process, nor has any one ever been able to draw from him anything concerning it.

Almost the only thing he knows about the power is that he possesses it, and, while he is not altogether averse to receiving money for his work, he has steadily refused to allow himself to be exhibited." In reviewing the peculiar endowment of Fields, the Chicago Record says:-- "How this feat is performed is as much a mystery as the process by which he solves a problem in arithmetic.