W. C. Fields : his follies and fortunes (1949)

"and I was headed for the shrubbery, which grows very lush in those parts. Well, her husband was following along behind holding a forefinger up in the air and crying, 'One dollah, one dollah!'" The anecdote continued its ribald course, and when it was finished, Johnston had to leave. As soon as he was gone, one of Fields' companions said, "Bill, you're a damned fool to talk like that to a man who's about to write you up. You ought to be more circumspect." "Circumspect, hell!" Fields cried. "I don't care how black he paints me." During his Orlando Social Club, or early larcenous, phase, Fields was anything but circumspect. The urge for self-preservation is strong in the human, and Fields, though he suffered, had every intention of surviving. He began by lifting commodities off such carts as ventured out in the stillwinter weather. "Good morning, Mr. Giovanni," he'd cry, and after an exchange of amenities the man would drive off the poorer by three tomatoes. Because of Fields' work with the lemons, his fingers were practiced and nimble ; also, he knew his way around a vegetable cart. As time went on he became painfully familiar to many cart drivers, who would slash at their horses when they saw him coming. On his pilfering sorties, Fields wore a loose-fitting blouse, which he filled as he made his rounds. After a while vegetables palled on him, as vegetables will, and his mind turned to thoughts of a balanced diet. He worked up a device to obtain protein, but it involved traveling to an obscure part of town. With his face fixed in a timorous smirk, he would enter a butcher's and say, "Mama sent me for three pork chops." When the butcher produced these from the icebox, the boy would add, "Oh, yes, and a pound of bacon." Then, as the butcher turned away, Fields would grab the chops and fly. Relating his adventures, in the 21