He makes another appeal. The first time I ever met him I felt sorry for him. The humour of it, that I should want to help him--this young charming Fortunatus--struck me almost at once. But I could not help it. Afterwards I found that nearly every one else shares this feeling. Of course exactly the same thing is operative on the screen. For Chaplin owes his supremacy as much to the tears as to the laughter of the multitude. This pathos of his comes from an enduring isolation. He is, and I think always will be, a lonely figure. Beloved by many, applauded by all, he is merely with--never of--the crowd--not though he gives it back gesture for gesture and laugh for laugh. Not misleading, the look of listening which so much impressed me the first time I met him! For early in life Chaplin took his seat in the parquet of life and ever since he has been watching the rest of us actors unfolding our drama. Do not be deceived because sometimes he vaults over the footlights and behaves just like the performers. Even when he is at his merriest pranks, even when he is talking most confidentially and affectionately to his friends, he is still the onlooker, detached from the rest of us by I know not what fastnesses of spirit. The most intimate of Charlie’s friends in Hollywood are Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. He goes over to their house frequently, and the three talk pictures hard and fast. Chaplin, of course, frequently sees in the creations of the other two an opportunity for characteristic suggestions. When, for instance, he saw the moated castle in “Robin Hood” he said to Fairbanks: “Wonderful, Doug! Just think what I would do with that drawbridge on Sunday morning! I’d let it down so I could take in the Sunday papers and the milk-bottles and then draw it up tight so that nobody could get at me all the rest of the day.” One time I asked Charlie who was his favourite screen actress. “I think Mary Pickford,” he answered unhesitatingly. “You see there’s a wonderful quality about her--it’s that more than her acting.” Unlike almost every other screen actor, Charlie does not work from a script. When he starts a new story he is apt to come into his studio and say, “Build me a kitchen and a dining-room.” He has at this moment perhaps only the germ of an idea. But day by day he develops it, and as he does so his scenario-writer puts down each scene. This method has often been described, and I touch upon it here only for its value in revealing his psychology. A scenario would undoubtedly irk him as much as would a social engagement. Always, always, Chaplin must be assured that he is free, that his individuality has scope for its spontaneous play.