My Autobiography by Charles Chaplin (most read book in the world TXT) 📕

the metallic voice of my American secretary: ‘Who?… The Prince of Wales!’

Eddie was there and, since he claimed to be versed in protocol, took the phone. I could hear Eddie’s voice saying: ‘Are you there? Oh yes. Tonight? Thank you!’

He announced excitedly to my secretary that the Prince of Wales would like Mr Chaplin to dine with him that night and started for my bedroom.

‘Don’t wake him now,’ said my secretary.

‘Good God, man, this is the Prince of Wales!’ said Eddie indignantly, and launched into a tirade on British etiquette.

A moment later I heard the handle of my bedroom door turn, so I pretended to be just waking. Eddie came in and announced with suppressed excitement and a phoney nonchalance: ‘You must keep tonight open; you’re invited to dine with the Prince of Wales.’

Assuming a similar nonchalance, I told him it would be awkward, as this evening I had a previous engagement to dine with H. G. Wells. Eddie ignored what I said and repeated the message. Naturally I was thrilled – the thought of dining with the Prince at Buckingham Palace! ‘But I think someone must be spoofing us,’ I said, ‘because only last night I read that the Prince was up in Scotland, shooting.’

Eddie suddenly looked foolish. ‘Perhaps I’d better telephone the Palace and find out.’

He returned with an inscrutable look and announced unemotionally: ‘It’s true, he’s still in Scotland.’

That morning news came that Fatty Arbuckle, my associate at the Keystone Company, had been charged with murder. This was preposterous; I knèw Roscoe to be a genial, easy-going type who would not harm a fly, and expressed this view to the Press when they interviewed me about it. Eventually, Arbuckle was completely exonerated, but it ruined his career: although he was reinstated with the public, the ordeal took its toll, and within a year or so he died.

I was to meet Wells in the afternoon at the offices of Oswald Stoll Theatres, where we were to see a film based on one of Wells’s stories. As we drew near I noticed a dense crowd. Very soon I was pushed and propelled and shot into an elevator and swept up into a small office where there were more people.

I was bewildered that our first meeting should be under such auspices. Wells was seated calmly by a desk, his violet-blue eyes kindly and twinkling, looking a little embarrassed. Before we could shake hands, a barrage of flashlights and photographers appeared from everywhere. Wells leaned over and whispered: ‘You and I are the goats.’

Then we were ushered into a projection-room and towards the end of the film Wells whispered: ‘How do you like it?’ I told him frankly that it was not good. When the lights went up, Wells quickly leaned over. ‘Say something nice about the boy.’ As a matter of fact, the boy, George K. Arthur, was the only redeeming feature of the picture.

Wells’s attitude to movies was an affected tolerance. ‘There is no such thing as a bad film,’ he said; ‘The fact that they move is wonderful!’

There was no chance to get acquainted on that occasion, but later that day I received a message:

Don’t forget dinner. You can wrap up in an overcoat if you deem it advisable, and slip in about 7.30 and we can dine in peace.

That evening Rebecca West was there. Conversation was a little stiff at first. But eventually we began to thaw out. Wells talked of Russia, for he had recently been there.

‘Progress is slow,’ he said. ‘It is easy to issue ideal manifestoes but difficult to carry them out.’

‘What’s the solution?’ I asked.

‘Education.’

I told him that I was not well informed about socialism, and said jestingly that I saw little virtue in a system in which man must work to live. ‘Frankly, I prefer one that enables him to live without work.’

He laughed. ‘What about your films?’

‘That isn’t work – that’s child’s play,’ I said, facetiously.

He asked me what I intended doing during my holiday in Europe. I told him I thought of going to Paris, then on to Spain to see a bullfight. ‘I’ve been told that the technique is dramatic and beautiful.’

‘Quite so, but it’s very cruel to horses,’ he said.

‘Why be sentimental about horses?’ I could have kicked myself for making such a silly remark; it was my nerves. But I could see that Wells understood. However, all the way home I reproached myself for being such an ass.

The next day Eddie Knoblock’s friend, Sir Edwin Lutyens, the celebrated architect, came to the hotel. He was working on the plans of a new Government building for Delhi, and had just returned from Buckingham Palace after an interview with King George V. He had taken with him a workable miniature toilet; it was about six inches high with a cistern that held a small wine-glass full of water, and when the chain was pulled it flushed like a regular toilet. Both the King and Queen had been so charmed and amused by it, pulling its chain and refilling its cistern, that Lutyens had suggested building a dolls’ house around it. Later he arranged for various important English artists to paint miniature pictures for the principal rooms. Every domestic installation was made in miniature. When it was finished, the Queen permitted it to be exhibited to the public, and collected large sums of money for charity.

*

After a while the tide of my social activity began to recede. I had met the literati and the illustrious and had visited the scenes of my boyhood; now there seemed little left but to jump in and out of taxis to escape the crowds; and as Eddie Knoblock had left for Brighton, I suddenly decided to pack up and go to Paris and get away from it all.

We left without publicity – so I thought – but at Calais a large crowd greeted us. ‘Vive Charlot!’ they cried as I came down the gangplank. We had had a rough crossing, and half of me