Part 5

What a symbol from which to count the years that I had been away. A little more green to his clothes! A bit more grey in his matted beard!

He has that same stark look in his eyes that used to make me sick as a child. Everything exactly the same, only a bit more dilapidated.

No. There is a change. The dirty little mat for the unhealthy-looking pup with the watering eyes that used to be with him--that is gone. I would like to hear the story of the missing pup.

Did its passing make much difference to the lonely derelict? Was its ending a tragic one, dramatic, or had it just passed out naturally?

The old man is laboriously reading the same chapter from his old, greasy, and bethumbed embossed Bible. His lips move, but silently, as his fingers travel over the letters. I wonder if he gets comfort there? Or does he need comfort?

To me it is all too horrible. He is the personification of poverty at its worst, sunk in that inertia that comes of lost hope. It is too terrible.

VI.

THE HAUNTS OF MY CHILDHOOD

I jump into the automobile again and we drive along past Christ Church. There's Baxter Hall, where we used to see magic-lantern slides for a penny. The forerunner of the movie of to-day. I see significance in everything around me. You could get a cup of coffee and a piece of cake there and see the Crucifixion of Christ all at the same time.

We are passing the police station. A drear place to youth. Kennington Road is more intimate. It has grown beautiful in its decay. There is something fascinating about it.

Sleepy people seem to be living in the streets more than they used to when I played there. Kennington Baths, the reason for many a day's hookey. You could go swimming there, second class, for three pence (if you brought your own swimming trunks).

Through Brook Street to the upper Bohemian quarter, where third-rate music-hall artists appear. All the same, a little more decayed, perhaps. And yet it is not just the same.

I am seeing it through other eyes. Age trying to look back through the eyes of youth. A common pursuit, though a futile one.

It is bringing home to me that I am a different person. It takes the form of art; it is beautiful. I am very impersonal about it. It is another world, and yet in it I recognise something, as though in a dream.

We pass the Kennington "pub," Kennington Cross, Chester Street, where I used to sleep. The same, but, like its brother landmarks, a bit more dilapidated. There is the old tub outside the stables where I used to wash. The same old tub, a little more twisted.

I tell the driver to pull up again. "Wait a moment." I do not know why, but I want to get out and walk. An automobile has no place in this setting. I have no particular place to go. I just walk along down Chester Street. Children are playing, lovely children. I see myself among them back there in the past. I wonder if any of them will come back some day and look around enviously at other children.

Somehow they seem different from those children with whom I used to play. Sweeter, more dainty were these little, begrimed kids with their arms entwined around one another's waists. Others, little girls mostly, sitting on the doorsteps, with dolls, with sewing, all playing at that universal game of "mothers."

For some reason I feel choking up. As I pass they look up. Frankly and without embarrassment they look at the stranger with their beautiful, kindly eyes. They smile at me. I smile back. Oh, if I could only do something for them. These waifs with scarcely any chance at all.

Now a woman passes with a can of beer. With a white skirt hanging down, trailing at the back. She treads on it. There, she has done it again. I want to shriek with laughter at the joy of being in this same old familiar Kennington. I love it.

It is all so soft, so musical; there is so much affection in the voices. They seem to talk from their souls. There are the inflections that carry meanings, even if words were not understood. I think of Americans and myself. Our speech is hard, monotonous, except where excitement makes it more noisy.

There is a barber shop where I used to be the lather boy. I wonder if the same old barber is still there? I look. No, he is gone. I see two or three kiddies playing on the porch. Foolish, I give them something. It creates attention. I am about to be discovered.

I leap into the taxi again and ride on. We drive around until I have escaped from the neighbourhood where suspicion has been planted and come to the beginning of Lambeth Walk. I get out and walk along among the crowds.

People are shopping. How lovely the cockneys are! How romantic the figures, how sad, how fascinating! Their lovely eyes. How patient they are! Nothing conscious about them. No affectation, just themselves, their beautifully gay selves, serene in their limitations, perfect in their type.

I am the wrong note in this picture that nature has concentrated here. My clothes are a bit conspicuous in this setting, no matter how unobtrusive my thoughts and actions. Dressed as I am, one never strolls along Lambeth Walk.

I feel the attention I am attracting. I put my handkerchief to my face. People are looking at me, at first slyly, then insistently. Who am I? For a moment I am caught unawares.

A girl comes up--thin, narrow-chested, but with an eagerness in her eyes that lifts her above any physical defects.

"Charlie, don't you know me?"

Of course I know her. She is all excited, out of breath. I can almost feel her heart thumping with emotion as her narrow chest heaves with her hurried breathing. Her face is ghastly white, a girl about twenty-eight. She has a little girl with her.

This girl was a little servant girl who used to wait on us at the cheap lodging-house where I lived. I remembered that she had left in disgrace. There was tragedy in it. But I could detect a certain savage gloriousness in her. She was carrying on with all odds against her. Hers is the supreme battle of our age. May she and all others of her kind meet a kindly fate.

With pent-up feelings we talk about the most commonplace things.

"Well, how are you, Charlie?"

"Fine." I point to the little girl. "Is she your little girl?"

She says, "Yes."

That's all, but there doesn't seem to be much need of conversation. We just look and smile at each other and we both weave the other's story hurriedly through our own minds by way of the heart. Perhaps in our weaving we miss a detail or two, but substantially we are right. There is warmth in the renewed acquaintance. I feel that in this moment I know her better than I ever did in the many months I used to see her in the old days. And right now I feel that she is worth knowing.

There's a crowd gathering. It's come. I am discovered, with no chance for escape. I give the girl some money to buy something for the child, and hurry on my way. She understands and smiles. Crowds are following. I am discovered in Lambeth Walk.

But they are so charming about it. I walk along and they keep behind at an almost standard distance. I can feel rather than hear their shuffling footsteps as they follow along, getting no closer, losing no ground. It reminds me of the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

All these people just about five yards away, all timid, thrilled, excited at hearing my name, but not having the courage to shout it under this spell.

"There he is." "That's 'im." All in whispers hoarse with excitement and carrying for great distance, but at the same time repressed by the effort of whispering. What manners these cockneys have! The crowds accumulate. I am getting very much concerned. Sooner or later they are going to come up, and I am alone, defenceless. What folly this going out alone, and along Lambeth Walk!

Eventually I see a bobby, a sergeant--or, rather, I think him one, he looks so immaculate in his uniform. I go to him for protection.

"Do you mind?" I say. "I find I have been discovered. I am Charlie Chaplin. Would you mind seeing me to a taxi?"

"That's all right, Charlie. These people won't hurt you. They are the best people in the world. I have been with them for fifteen years." He speaks with a conviction that makes me feel silly and deservedly rebuked.

I say, "I know it; they are perfectly charming."

"That's just it," he answers. "They are charming and nice."

They had hesitated to break in upon my solitude, but now, sensing that I have protection, they speak out.

"Hello, Charlie!" "God bless you, Charlie!" "Good luck to you, lad!" As each flings his or her greetings they smile and self-consciously back away into the group, bringing others to the fore for their greeting. All of them have a word--old women, men, children. I am almost overcome with the sincerity of their welcome.

We are moving along and come to a street corner and into Kennington Road again. The crowds continue following as though I were their leader, with nobody daring to approach within a certain radius.

The little cockney children circle around me to get a view from all sides.

I see myself among them. I, too, had followed celebrities in my time in Kennington. I, too, had pushed, edged, and fought my way to the front rank of crowds, led by curiosity. They are in rags, the same rags, only more ragged.

They are looking into my face and smiling, showing their blackened teeth. Good God! English children's teeth are terrible! Something can and should be done about it. But their eyes!

Soulful eyes with such a wonderful expression. I see a young girl glance slyly at her beau. What a beautiful look she gives him! I find myself wondering if he is worthy, if he realises the treasure that is his. What a lovely people!

We are waiting. The policeman is busy hailing a taxi. I just stand there self-conscious. Nobody asks any questions. They are content to look. Their steadfast watching is so impressing. I feel small--like a cheat. Their worship does not belong to me. God, if I could only do something for all of them!

But there are too many--too many. Good impulses so often die before this "too many."

I am in the taxi.

"Good-bye, Charlie! God bless you!" I am on my way.

The taxi is going up Kennington Road along Kennington Park. Kennington Park. How depressing Kennington Park is! How depressing to me are all parks! The loneliness of them. One never goes to a park unless one is lonesome. And lonesomeness is sad. The symbol of sadness, that's a park.

But I am fascinated now with it. I am lonesome and want to be. I want to commune with myself and the years that are gone. The years that were passed in the shadow of this same Kennington Park. I want to sit on its benches again in spite of their treacherous bleakness, in spite of the drabness.

But I am in a taxi. And taxis move fast. The park is out of sight. Its alluring spell is dismissed with its passing. I did not sit on the bench. We are driving toward Kennington Gate.

Kennington Gate. That has its memories. Sad, sweet, rapidly recurring memories.

'Twas here, my first appointment with Hetty (Sonny's sister). How I was dolled up in my little, tight-fitting frock coat, hat, and cane! I was quite the dude as I watched every street car until four o'clock waiting for Hetty to step off, smiling as she saw me waiting.

I get out and stand there for a few moments at Kennington Gate. My taxi driver thinks I am mad. But I am forgetting taxi drivers. I am seeing a lad of nineteen, dressed to the pink, with fluttering heart, waiting, waiting for the moment of the day when he and happiness walked along the road. The road is so alluring now. It beckons for another walk, and as I hear a street car approaching I turn eagerly, for the moment almost expecting to see the same trim Hetty step off, smiling.

The car stops. A couple of men get off. An old woman. Some children. But no Hetty.

Hetty is gone. So is the lad with the frock coat and cane.

Back into the cab, we drive up Brixton Road. We pass Glenshore Mansions--a more prosperous neighbourhood. Glenshore Mansions, which meant a step upward to me, where I had my Turkish carpets and my red lights in the beginning of my prosperity.

We pull up at The Horns for a drink. The same Horns. Used to adjoin the saloon bar. It has changed. Its arrangement is different. I do not recognise the keeper. I feel very much the foreigner now; do not know what to order. I am out of place. There's a barmaid.

How strange, this lady with the coiffured hair and neat little shirtwaist!

"What can I do for you, sir?"

I am swept off my feet. Impressed. I want to feel very much the foreigner. I find myself acting.

"What have you got?"

She looks surprised.

"Ah, give me ginger beer." I find myself becoming a little bit affected. I refuse to understand the money--the shillings and the pence. It is thoroughly explained to me as each piece is counted before me. I go over each one separately and then leave it all on the table.

There are two women seated at a near-by table. One is whispering to the other. I am recognised.

"That's 'im; I tell you 'tis."

"Ah, get out! And wot would 'e be a-doin' 'ere?"

I pretend not to hear, not to notice. But it is too ominous. Suddenly a white funk comes over me and I rush out and into the taxi again. It's closing time for a part of the afternoon. Something different. I am surprised. It makes me think it is Sunday. Then I learn that it is a new rule in effect since the war.

I am driving down Kennington Road again. Passing Kennington Cross.

Kennington Cross.

It was here that I first discovered music, or where I first learned its rare beauty, a beauty that has gladdened and haunted me from that moment. It all happened one night while I was there, about midnight. I recall the whole thing so distinctly.

I was just a boy, and its beauty was like some sweet mystery. I did not understand. I only knew I loved it and I became reverent as the sounds carried themselves through my brain _via_ my heart.

I suddenly became aware of a harmonica and a clarinet playing a weird, harmonious message. I learned later that it was "The Honeysuckle and the Bee." It was played with such feeling that I became conscious for the first time of what melody really was. My first awakening to music.

I remembered how thrilled I was as the sweet sounds pealed into the night. I learned the words the next day. How I would love to hear it now, that same tune, that same way!

Conscious of it, yet defiant, I find myself singing the refrain softly to myself:

You are the honey, honeysuckle. I am the bee; I'd like to sip the honey, dear, from those red lips. You see I love you dearie, dearie, and I want you to love me-- You are my honey, honeysuckle. I am your bee.

Kennington Cross, where music first entered my soul. Trivial, perhaps, but it was the first time.

There are a few stragglers left as I pass on my way along Manchester Bridge at the Prince Road. They are still watching me. I feel that Kennington Road is alive to the fact that I am in it. I am hoping that they are feeling that I have come back, not that I am a stranger in the public eye.

I am on my way back. Crossing Westminster Bridge. I enter a new land. I go back to the Haymarket, back to the Ritz to dress for dinner.

VII.

A JOKE AND STILL ON THE GO

In the evening I dined at the Ritz with Ed. Knoblock, Miss Forrest, and several other friends. The party was a very congenial one and the dinner excellent. It did much to lift me from the depression into which the afternoon in Kennington had put me.

Following dinner we said "Good night" to Miss Forrest, and the rest of us went around to Ed. Knoblock's apartment in the Albany. The Albany is the most interesting building I have yet visited in London.

In a sort of dignified grandeur it stands swathed in an atmosphere of tradition. It breathes the past, and such a past! It has housed men like Shelley and Edmund Burke and others whose fame is linked closely with the march of English civilisation.

Naturally, the building is very old. Ed.'s apartment commands a wonderful view of London. It is beautifully and artistically furnished, its high ceilings, its tapestries, and its old Victorian windows giving it a quaintness rather startling in this modern age.

We had a bit of supper, and about eleven-thirty it began to rain, and later there was a considerable thunderstorm.

Conversation, languishing on general topics, turns to me, the what and wherefore of my coming and going, my impressions, plans, etc. I tell them as best I can.

Knoblock is anxious to get my views on England, on the impression that London has made. We discuss the matter and make comparisons. I feel that England has acquired a sadness, something that is tragic and at the same time beautiful.

We discuss my arrival. How wonderful it was. The crowds, the reception. Knoblock thinks that it is the apex of my career. I am inclined to agree with him.

Whereupon Tom Geraghty comes forward with a startling thought. Tom suggests that I die immediately. He insists that this is the only fitting thing to do, that to live after such a reception and ovation would be an anti-climax. The artistic thing to do would be to finish off my career with a spectacular death. Everyone is shocked at his suggestion. But I agree with Tom that it would be a great climax. We are all becoming very sentimental; we insist to one another that we must not think such thoughts, and the like.

The lightning is flashing fitfully outside. Knoblock, with an inspiration, gathers all of us, except Tom Geraghty, into a corner and suggests that on the next flash of lightning, just for a joke, I pretend to be struck dead, to see what effect it would have on Tom.

We make elaborate plans rapidly. Each is assigned to his part in the impromptu tragedy. We give Tom another drink and start to talking about death and kindred things. Then we all comment how the wind is shaking this old building, how its windows rattle and the weird effect that lightning has on its old tapestries and lonely candlesticks. Surreptitiously, some one has turned out all but one light, but old Tom does not suspect.

The atmosphere is perfect for our hoax and several of us who are "in the know" feel sort of creepy as we wait for the next flash. I prime myself for the bit of acting.

The flash comes, and with it I let forth a horrible shriek, then stand up, stiffen, and fall flat on my face. I think I did it rather well, and I am not sure but that others beside Tom were frightened.

Tom drops his whisky glass and exclaims: "My God! It's happened!" and his voice is sober. But no one pays any attention to him.

They all rush to me and I am carried feet first into the bedroom, and the door closed on poor old Tom, who is trying to follow me in. Tom just paces the floor, waiting for some one to come from the bedroom and tell him what has happened. He knocks on the door several times, but no one will let him in.

Finally, Carl Robinson comes out of the room, looking seriously intent, and Tom rushes to him.

"For God's sake, Carl, what's wrong?"

Carl brushes him aside and makes for the telephone.

"Is he--dead?" Tom puts the question huskily and fearfully.

Carl pays no attention except: "Please don't bother me now, Tom. This is too serious." Then he calls on the telephone for the coroner. This has such an effect on Geraghty that Knoblock comes forth from the bedroom to pacify him.

"I am sure it will be all right," Knoblock says to Tom, at the same time looking as though he were trying to keep something secret. Everything is staged perfectly and poor old Tom just stands and looks bewildered, and every few moments tries to break into the bedroom, but is told to stay out, that he is in no condition to be mixing up in anything so serious.

The chief of police is called, doctors are urged to rush there in all haste with motors, and with each call Tom's suffering increases. We keep up the joke until it has reached the point of artistry, and then I enter from the bedroom in a flowing sheet for a gown and a pillow slip on each arm to represent wings, and I proceed to be an angel for a moment.

But the effect has been too great on Tom, and even the travesty at the finish does not get a laugh from him.

We laughed and talked about the stunt for a while and Tom was asked what he would have done if it had been true and I had been hit by the lightning.

Tom made me feel very cheap and sorry that I had played the trick on him when he said that he would have jumped out of the window himself, as he would have no desire to live if I were dead.

But we soon got away from serious things and ended the party merrily and went home about five in the morning. Which meant that we would sleep very late that day.

Three o'clock in the afternoon found me awakened by the news that there was a delegation of reporters waiting to see me. They were all ushered in and the whole thirty-five of them started firing questions at me in a bunch. And I answered them all, for by this time I was quite proficient with reporters, and as they all asked the same questions that I had answered before it was not hard.

In fact, we all had luncheon or tea together, though for me it was breakfast, and I enjoyed them immensely. They are real, sincere, and intelligent and not hero worshippers.

Along about five o'clock Ed. Knoblock came in with the suggestion that we go out for a ride together and call around to see Bernard Shaw. This did sound like a real treat. Knoblock knows Shaw very well and he felt sure that Shaw and I would like each other.

First, though, I propose that we take a ride about London, and Ed. leads the way to some very interesting spots, the spots that the tourist rarely sees as he races his way through the buildings listed in guide books.

He takes me to the back of the Strand Theatre, where there are beautiful gardens and courts suggesting palaces and armour and the days when knights were bold. These houses were the homes of private people during the reign of King Charles and even farther back. They abound in secret passages and tunnels leading up to the royal palace. There is an air about them that is aped and copied, but it is not hard to distinguish the real from the imitation. History is written on every stone; not the history of the battlefield that is laid bare for the historians, but that more intimate history, that of the drawing-room, where, after all, the real ashes of empires are sifted.

Now we are in Adelphi Terrace, where Bernard Shaw and Sir James Barrie live. What a lovely place the terrace is! And its arches underneath leading to the river. And at this hour, six-thirty, there comes the first fall of evening and London with its soft light is at its best.

I can quite understand why Whistler was so crazy about it. Its lighting is perfect--so beautiful and soft. Perhaps there are those who complain that it is poorly lighted and who would install many modern torches of electricity to remedy the defect, but give me London as it is. Do not paint the lily.

We make for Shaw's house, which overlooks the Thames Embankment. As we approach I feel that this is a momentous occasion. I am to meet Shaw. We reach the house. I notice on the door a little brass name plate with the inscription, "Bernard Shaw." I wonder if there is anything significant about Shaw's name being engraved in brass. The thought pleases me. But we are here, and Knoblock is about to lift the knocker.

And then I seem to remember reading somewhere about dozens of movie actors going abroad, and how they invariably visited Shaw. Good Lord! the man must be weary of them. And why should he be singled out and imposed upon? And I do not desire to ape others. And I want to be individual and different. And I want Bernard Shaw to like me. And I don't want to force myself upon him.

And all this is occurring very rapidly, and I am getting fussed, and we are almost before him, and I say to Knoblock, "No, I don't want to meet him."