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

W. C. Fields safe-deposit boxes about which, deliberately or not, he said nothing. There were two reasons for Fields' banking system. Primarily, he saw it as a way to discourage thievery, a breach of the moral code he detested in others. Second, he was, he felt, building up safeguards against being stranded. By now he had the full-fledged phobia about poverty that remained with him to the end of his days. He often had a dream, he once told a friend, in which he found himself penniless and starving in an unfriendly wayside settlement. "I'd stolen some bread or something," he said, "and everybody was after me — police and dogs were coming and there was a big hullabaloo. I used to wake up in a cold sweat. But then I'd see it was a dream and I'd say to myself, forget it — you've probably got a bank account in that town." As a rule Fields opened the accounts and took the safe-deposit boxes in his own name, but he was known to hint darkly about scattered riches controlled by such people as Figley E. Whitesides, Sneed Hearn, and Dr. Otis Guelpe — names for which he sometimes expressed a fancy in other connections. Throughout his life, Fields rarely spoke of his accounts to people other than his secretaries or his lawyers, and then only if necessary for business reasons. The occasions were few and far between when he even mentioned his possessions to friends. Once, he told of his infrequent visits to a small bank in Iowa, which had an exceedingly gullible and friendly teller. Fields liked to drop in every three or four years to add a small deposit to his capital. The teller, a middle-aged, myopic man, greeted him with warmth and curiosity. "Account of Professor Curtis T. Bascom?" he'd say, and squint at Fields. "Why, dear me, Professor Bascom ! Delighted to see you again. Now, tell me, where have you been this trip?" Thus provided an opening, Fields would dilate entertainingly on his recent expedition up the Amazon after an almost extinct 7*