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

W. C. Fields around in his movie scenes. When he finished, he wiped his fingers with a napkin, rolled it into a ball, and tossed it negligently into the air; when it fell, he boosted it into a spittoon with his heel. Even in his juggling days he had never been in better form. In the saloon he met J. Frothingham Waterbury, an investment counselor, a man with the composite impressiveness of all the salesmen who had tried to peddle Fields stocks for fifty years. Waterbury described the mine and the probable results of investing. "You'll have a country place," he said, "with a beer river running through it, and all you'll have to do is sit in a rocker, wrapped in a Paisley shawl, and sign checks." Fields' interest was aroused by the implications of this story. "You mean I'll have a fountain pen by then?" he asked, elated. Pressed for cash, he started to work on his prospective son-in-law, Og Ogilbie. "Don't be a fuddie duddie, don't be a moon calf," he told the reluctant youth. "Invest in the beefsteak mine. You'll have a country place, with your old grandmother's Paisley shawl running through it. A rocker, a beer river " and in his emotion he became incoherent, a little indistinct. Ogilbie capitulated, and the abstraction was accomplished, but the bank examiner, J. Pinkerton Snoopington, turned up unexpectedly and Fields was obliged to divert him. Franklin Pangborn played the part of the examiner, a performance which was in some measure effaced by the brilliant light of the star. Fields had always considered Pangborn a very funny man; like Preston Sturges, he used him whenever possible. The byplay between the worried Souse and the conscientious Snoopington has been mentioned as outstanding among the gems of Fields comedy. His first effort to prevent Snoopington from reaching the bank took the form of showing him around the town. Passing a hardware store, Fields urged that the examiner weigh himself on a 33°