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

sergeant named O'Malley at the station and we fell into a pleasant discussion about the Church. I figured we were going to get off scot-free. The sergeant was sympathetic when he heard about the crash. He said those things were sometimes unavoidable. I was about ready to leave when Fields and the farmer burst in through the door. They were both lit up to the sky. Bill had spent half an hour getting him drunk. When he saw me, he yelled, 'What are you doing, you Irish bum?' The sergeant thought he meant him and threw all three of us in jail. It cost us fifty dollars apiece. Bill made me pay the farmer's fine out of my own pocket. He said I'd handled it undiplomatically." Grady was driving the car through the South one night while Fields sat in the back seat on the trunk. The comedian was drinking what he described as "martinis" ; he had a bottle of gin in one hand and a bottle of vermouth in the other, and he took alternate pulls, favoring the gin. At an intersection in a country town they saw a man with a satchel making signals under a street lamp. Grady said, "Fellow wants a ride." "Pick him up," cried Fields. "Where's your sense of charity?" Grady slowed down, called out, "Hop in the back," and waited till the man got aboard. As they drove off, Fields extended the gin bottle to him, but the man refused, with a look of offended piety. About five miles down the road the stranger took some tracts out of his coat pocket and said, "Brothers, I'm a minister of the gospel." Fields blew a mouthful of gin on the floor and the man went on, "You're sinning in this automobile and though I don't ordinarily do no free preaching, I'm going to preach a free sermon right here." He examined the tracts and added, "To tell you the truth, I'm a-going to give you Number Four." "What's Number Four?" said Fields. "Galled the 'Evils of Alcohol,' " said the minister. 163