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

comic device was directing tobacco juice at a spittoon which rang like a gong, was "a terribly funny fellow." What this opinion meant, as his companions realized, was that he had analyzed the tobacco-juice trick and felt that nothing important would ever come of it. Fields got everybody up early the next morning by rapping on their doors and calling out, to the indignation of other guests, that "we've got a big day ahead." They were on the road not long after sunrise, again heading north, into the big redwood country. In this precocious garden patch Fields tarried for hours, studying the trees, quizzing the guides, buying literature, and boning up on statistics, which he intended to use later on Bob Howard. They had another drawn-out picnic, in the course of which he undertook, on the sly, to carve their initials on one of the giants. But the project was too tiresome ; he gave it up. They drove on to San Francisco. There, as in Santa Barbara, he got them all hotel suites, at the St. Francis. Then he consulted a travel office, to get a list of civic attractions and work out an itinerary. During the following day the party visited most of the monuments, bridges, public buildings, pieces of high ground, bronze plaques, and bizarre quarters in the metropolitan area. "It's important to stick to the simple things," Fields said. "We have nothing finer than our ordinary tourist customs." For some reason, he manifested no interest in Alcatraz. Their return to Hollywood, down the winding, rugged coastline, was accomplished in luxurious torpor. The sun was hot, the motion and the springs of the big car were irresistibly lulling, and the ocean with its slow, even rhythm exerted a sedative effect. They picnicked in isolated coves; twice they paused for naps on shaded banks of sand. So deliciously soothed did Fields apparently feel, so removed from the stress of his career, that he began to buy gifts for the party at opportune places. "Mr. Fields usually 285