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to make his bed. The sight of the youngsters now in the place of the child he had been, sent him out to buy compensation for them. He bought a cinema projector, a saxophone, sweets, toys, oranges — everything the child Charlie had longed for, everything these children must long for too.
Yet, when the time came for him to go to distribute this largesse on the following day, he was in another world, having tea with Lady Astor, Amy Johnson and Bernard Shaw. Yesterday's emotional crisis was over, appeased by the gifts he had bought. He refused to leave his tea party. The crowds that had gathered along the road to watch him pass, the children and the staff of the home, were all bitterly disappointed. But Chaplin, yesterday shaken with compassion, haunted by memory, pale and sombre at the thought of children condemned to institutional care, was to-day on top of the world, amusing his fellow guests with a story of how, while he was at work on City Lights he had made Douglas Fairbanks eat dust. Douglas Fairbanks, who will be remembered for his picaresque and athletic roles in The Black Pirate, The Three Musketeers, Robin Hood and the like, was in fact one of Hollywood's finest athletes, and prided himself on keeping fit. Finding Chaplin one morning in a black mood, he first lectured him on his liver, then advised him to take up the cult of physical fitness, and finally challenged him to an early morning sprint the following day from their adjoining homes in Beverley Hills to the studio on La Brea Avenue. Chaplin, roused from his gloom in spite of himself through Fairbanks' exuberant personality, looked solemnly at their reflection in a mirror — Fairbanks tall, bronzed, broadshouldered, and himself, slight, pale, and more than a head shorter. He accepted the challenge, and seemed to wilt under.it. The news leaked out, as news will, and next morning the marathon began, to the mingled jeers and cheers of most of the film colony assembled to watch the start. Fairbanks' magnificent torso earned him a round of applause; Chaplin received sympathetic groans.
Fairbanks look the lead; but at the studio gates they were level; and while Fairbanks, panting and exhausted, dropped into a chair, Charlie, showing no sign of strain or stress, sprinted several times round the studio in best professional style, and drew up before his amazed and wide-eyed friend, still pumping his legs vigorously up and down. He then lectured Fairbanks on his liver, advised him to take up the cult of physical fitness and, towelling himself vigorously with Fairbanks' scarf, said laconically — "Kennington Wonder, that's me. Best amateur long distance champion this side of the Cut — but you wouldn't know about that ! "
In Berlin, he was mobbed for the first time in that country. His