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

The glad tidings from Dillingham distracted Fields to the point where he felt the need for a mild stimulant. He ordered a small bottle of whisky from room service and drank it thoughtfully, after which he put on a false beard, a wig, and a silk hat, and threw a property opera cape around his shoulders. Then he went out in search of entertainment. If his subsequent account was true, he attended a fashionable party, as "Dr. Hugo Sternhammer," a Viennese anthropologist. "I walked along the streets till I saw a lot of vehicles lined up in front of a big house," he told some friends in Chasen's. "I went up to the door and a butler or somebody stuck a silver plate under my nose. I put an old laundry check and a dime on it and went on in. It was a very enjoyable function. I had a long talk with the governor's wife." "What did you talk about, Bill?" one of his friends asked. "We talked about the mating habits of the wallaby," Fields said. He said further that before he left he drank a good deal of champagne and juggled some bric-a-brac for a group in one corner. Throughout the evening he talked in a heavy German accent, drawing suspicious looks from several military men. "I remember telling one woman that the Kaiser was my third cousin," he said. "She gave a little scream and ran like hell." Fields did not recall whether he left the party under his own power or was assisted by the butler. He believed, however, that he was one of the last to leave, and he had a pretty distinct recollection of crying out something like "Veedersehen, alles!" as he went through the door. He canceled the rest of his Australian, New Zealand and Tasmanian engagements and went about arranging passage home. It was, he found, a difficult undertaking. The German raider Emden, sent out by his third cousin, the Kaiser, was harassing shipping in Australian waters. Twice he managed to get H5