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

W. C. Fields "The sign's right there on the floor," added the conductor, pointing. "Most irregular," agreed the constable. "Depart!" cried Fields. "Vacate my compartment immediately! Why, damnation, I wouldn't be surprised if this was actionable!" The group drew off to inspect him in bewilderment. The conductor was nonplused, and so was the constable ; neither, they acknowledged, could remember a case drawn along exactly similar lines. "By your leave," said the trainman to the conductor, "there was that matter three year ago in Dulwich — a greengrocer in the second-class coach next to the rear." "Not the same," said the conductor, with asperity. "Not the same thing at all!" "Before my time," said the constable. "Unless mistaken I was in Brixton then, or was it Norwood?" "It's a puzzler, all right," said the trainman. In a little while they trailed off to find Mr. Ashcroft another seat. Still reading the paper, Fields waved his companion in, and shortly afterward the train left on its journey to Edinburgh. As Fields grew older and mellower he loved to talk about the English. They were a hardy and inexplicable race, he felt, and full of admirable, civilized qualities. Sitting in Dave Chasen's restaurant, with a few close friends, he would expound the anecdote about Mr. Ashcroft and the train seat, speaking in expert dialect and illustrating his talk with what struck him as typically English gestures. His philosophy of "Never Give a Sucker an Even Break," which he often stated but seldom practiced, gained its first real impetus in England. Fields had acquired the philosophy in the first place from a well-known American confidence man of the period, "Doc" 90