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theatrical friend and renting a few decorative orders, but the King sent additional word by a courier that he would like Fields to appear in the tramp suit.
The day arrived, and Fields appeared, deposited at the palace door by a highly disapproving coachman. It was a gala function, even by regal standards. The flower of English knighthood rambled over the formal gardens, sipping, munching, chattering, and pinching silverware in traditional style. The King greeted the juggler with effusion, although, Fields said later, a couple of nearby earls and a bishop were seen to shift their pocket watches. Their attitude changed, he went on, when it got about that he had come by invitation. The King's command, though inherently condescending, in the manner of royal invitations, was quite a compliment. To entertain the guests, Fields was to share honors with a French actress, a Sarah Bernhardt, who recited at length from UAiglon, a sad play of that period about a young Frenchman who had got in a jam and had to leave his country.
Aside from the brilliance of the fete, the day was not altogether successful for Fields. By an unhappy coincidence, he had his old trouble with dogs. A maharajah, glittering with gems bestowed upon him by his worshipful but pauperized subjects, turned up accompanied by a pair of peevish, well-fed mastiffs. The dogs were plainly bored by the affair, as is frequently the case with foreign mastiffs at an English garden party, but they were vastly rewarded by Fields. While most of the guests were only amused by his tramp costume, the dogs took it as authentic. From the moment they saw, or sniffed, him, they began to draw snobbish class lines. Each time Fields stacked up his cigar boxes, the dogs rushed in to destroy him. Though he worked hard, his timing was bad and his morale was shaken. For several minutes, he said afterward, he concentrated on a trick with a loaded cane, hoping to catch one of the dogs on the jaw. But they were spry, for
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