When the movies were young (1925)

Somewhat Digressive 239 Mr. Lasky invited him to the studio and offered him, perhaps, fifty dollars a week, and he made a hit in his first picture with Geraldine Farrar and was then given a substantial raise. At which Blanche, the astounded sister-inlaw said, "And to think that at times I've had to support that Irishman/' There had been enough job uncertainty to discourage her, so that she had wondered sometimes whether she would have him on her hands for the rest of her life. Even after Mr. Tommy Meighan's advent into pictures, sister Blanche rather expected, every now and then, than he would be "canned." And so Tommy evolved from a liability into an asset, and became the idol of innumerable feminine hearts. It was a colorful paper mat the Ring family wove. While out at the Elko studio Charlie Winninger, with all his brilliant and sustaining background, had so disastrously flopped, at Mack Sennett's studio another Charlie was very busy thinking out stunts that would make people laugh. For the more people laughed, the more dollars could Charlie Chaplin add to the savings for the rainy day, against which, if he ever got the chance, he would make himself fool-proof. For, so I have been told, Charlie Chaplin had known rainy days even when a youngster. He was only seven when, in a music-hall sketch, he made his first theatrical appearance. Later, he toured for some time through the United Kingdom as one of the "Eight Lancashire Lads." There was an engagement with "Sherlock Holmes," and then the association with Fred Karno in "The Mumming Birds." To America with Mr. Karno he came, appearing as Chariot in the now famous "A Night in an English