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W. C. Fields
amicable terms, and Fields returned to the gutters. He was free once more, but soft living had left its mark. Again as in the case of Finn, "I liked the old ways best, but I was getting so I liked the news ones, too, a little bit." Fields had been making two dollars a week at Strawbridge & Clothier's, and though they offered to raise him to two-fifty, he decided to better himself. Also, he was looking for something a little less formal, a little less stigmatized. His first employment after leaving the store involved racking balls in a pool hall. It was congenial work and offered, besides a bed on a table, a chance to juggle billiard balls in the evenings. This was a significant connection for Fields. He found himself studying the absurd, solemn mannerisms of pool-hall habitues, those tense, pale victims of a hard, ancestral rite. He observed the cautious choosing of the cue, the inelastic placement of the chalk, the hush before the fateful shot, the low aside. In general, this all struck him as perhaps the funniest thing he had ever seen, and he stored it up for future reference.
History has no record of pool-hall employees who were not experts at the game. By practicing on idle tables, Fields became, in the professional phrase, a "shark." He got so good that he began to represent the house in matches against customers looking for sport. Also, he made, by betting, a fair amount of money on the side. He was adept at the ancient poolroom trick of playing badly for a game or two, then hiking the bet to a plushy level and turning on his best form. This sort of artifice, though common, is looked upon as unethical in the best billiard circles, and Fields was frequently thrashed. Because of his long experience with colds, he found the ever-present chalk dust of the establishment a source of annoyance, and he at last resigned, fearful of contracting silicosis. Before he left, however, he conceived a love for the game that he never got over. In his after years, when he lived in big houses, Fields always had an expensive pool table, generally
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