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W. C. Fields
over the ground, was another spa of his fellows, the Orlando Social Club, a benevolent group similar to the Innapenent Order of Infadelaty, which was organized some years later by Penrod Schofield and Sam Williams. The club had its headquarters over the shop of a compliant blacksmith named Wheeler. It was an informal room, suitable for the development of spartanism. The roof was patchy and the walls had been carelessly joined; the furniture included a three-legged table and five empty beer kegs. Into this new apartment Fields moved with his quilt, a can of pork and beans, and a resolve to face the future without flinching. His subterranean stint had given him the social outlook of a mole, he subsequently said ; for several days life above ground made him feel like an impostor. Long before he was used to it, he was starving again, and he embarked on a career of petty crime.
There can be no doubt, in view of the evidence at hand, that Fields may now be regarded as Philadelphia's most distinguished vagrant since Benjamin Franklin. Franklin, at least by his own account, toiled in the path of righteousness; Fields, by his, committed every misdemeanor and small felony on the city's books. Though shy about his schooling, Fields was often voluble about things that he considered undamaging to his character, such as trespassing, theft and imprisonment. Throughout his life he heaped accounts of these triumphs on both his friends and his interviewers. One time he was chatting with Alva Johnston, who wrote masterly pieces about him for The New Yorker and the Saturday Evening Post, and several friends at Dave Chasen's restaurant in Hollywood. After describing a number of censorable adventures, Fields began a windy account of what he characterized as "one of the most romantic episodes of my life." It took place in the Solomon Islands, during a professional visit he'd made there.
"I had this Melanesian belle, a comely-looking lass," he said.
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