Whatever may be later sources of inspiration in motion-picture festivities those at Fanny Ward’s did not wander far from childhood’s happy hour. Once, I remember, a donkey-party was tendered. On this occasion Eva Tanguay did everything she could to sustain a famous self-characterisation. She did a bit of comedy work for which this nonsensical game offers such wide scope, convulsing us all with the innocent blundering she so well knows how to simulate. There was one personal prejudice of Fanny’s which is recalled with amusement by all those who used to be invited to those parties. No matter what she served her guests at dinner--lobster, or quail, or turkey--she herself always ate frankfurters. Furthermore, she liked a mob scene of these “hot dogs,” and I can see her now as she sat before one of her famous gold platters heaped high with the incongruous fare. Every other type of refreshment at the Ward home sprang from an equally liberal source. Witness to this fact is supplied by a dinner given by Fanny just previous to a discussion arranged by the Lasky Company, the Famous Players, and the Triangle Company with a view toward a merger of these organisations. A representative of one of the two rival companies sat beside me while a relentless hospitality was being waged. At last he turned to me pleadingly. “For Heaven’s sake,” he whispered, “I want a clear head for our talk. Won’t you tell that butler to stop filling my glass?” “Butler!” I whispered back, almost congealed with horror. “Sh! That’s Miss Ward’s husband.” This husband, by the way, was Jack Deane, her leading man, whom she married after coming to Hollywood. Fanny’s expenditures began at home, but they did not stay there. She made the same opulent gesture in the studio. Thus I remember that when Percy Hilburn, the cameraman who used to film her, threatened to leave us because we would not raise his salary from one hundred to two hundred a week, the actress made up the extra amount out of her own purse. “What,” she exclaimed, “have Percy leave the place while I am here! A man that can make you look as beautiful as he does me!” There was, of course, a great deal in what she said. For an expert cameraman can be as flattering as a pink sunshade. However, Fanny was dependent upon his ministrations. Her sustained ability to look young was especially definite in “Heart’s Ease,” a Bret Harte story in which she played a seventeen-year-old part. As Fanny’s own daughter was at the time just about this same age, newspapers everywhere saw the opportunity for much good-natured fun, and it was after such far-flung propaganda that her close friend Nora Bayes greeted her with a sally I have never forgotten.