Screenland (Sept 1922–Feb 1923)

27 SO we wandered along through South London by Kennington Cross and Kennington Gate, Nevvington Butts, Lambeth Walk and the Clapham Road, and all through the neighborhood. Almost every step brought back memories, most of them of a tender sort. I was right there in the midst of my youth, but somehow I seemed apart from it. I felt as though I was viewing it under a glass. It could be seen all too plainly, but when I reached to touch it it was not there — only the glass could be felt, this glass that had been glazed by the years since I left. If I could only get through the glass and touch the real live thing that had called me back to London. But I can't. A man cannot go back. He thinks he can, but other things have happened to his life. He has new ideas, new friends, new attachments. He doesn't belong to his past, except that the past has, perhaps, made marks on him. My friends and I continue our stroll — a stroll so pregnant with interest to me at times that I forget that I have company and wander along alone. Who is that old derelict there against the cart? Another landmark. I look at him closely. He is the same — only more so. Well do I remember him, the old tomato man. I was about 12 when I first saw him and he is still here in the same old spot, plying the same old trade, while I — I can picture him as he first appeared to me standing beside his round cart heaped with tomatoes, his greasy clothes shiny in their unkemptness, the rather glassy single eye that had looked from one side of his face staring at nothing in particular, but giving you the feeling that it was seeing all, the mottled nose with the network of veins spelling dissipation. Just to meet H. G. Wells, the celebrated novelist, alone is worth a trip to Europe, says Charlie Chaplin in this, his remarkable diary of his European holiday. "Wells tries on ray hat, then takes ray cane and twirls it. The effect is ridiculous, especially as just at that moment I notice two volumes of the Outline of History on his table." TRIP ABROAD I remember how I used to stand around and wait for him to shout his wares. His method never varied. There was a sudden twitching convulsion and he leaned to one side, trying to straighten out the other as he did so, and then, taking into his one lung all the air it would stand, he would let forth a clattering, gargling, asthmatic, high-pitched wheeze, a series of sounds which defied interpretation. Somewhere in the explosion there could be detected "ripe tomatoes." Any other part of his message was lost. AND he was still here. Through summer suns and winter ilsnows he had stood and was standing. Only a bit more decrepit, a bit older, more dyspeptic, his clothes greasier, his shoulders rounder, his one eye rather filmy and not so allseeing as it once was. And I waited, but he did not shout his wares any more. Even the good lung was failing. He just stood there inert in his ageing. And somehow the tomatoes did not look so good as they once were. We get into a cab and drive back toward Brixton to the Elephant and Castle, where we pull up at a coffee shop. The same old London coffee shop, with its bad coffee and tea. There are a few pink-cheeked roues around and a couple of old derelicts. Then there are a lot of painted ladies, many of them with young men and the rest of them looking for young men. Some of the young fellows are minus arms and many of them carry various ribbons of military honor. They are living and eloquent evidence of the war and its effects. There are a number of stragglers. The whole scene to me is depressing. What a sad London this is! People with tired, worn faces after four years of war! Some one suggests that we go up and see George Fitzmaurice, who lives in Park Lane. There we can get a drink and then go to bed. We jump in a cab and are soon there. What a difference! Park Lane is another world after the Elephant and Castle. Here are the homes of the millionaires and the prosperous. Fitzmaurice is quite a successful moving picture director. We find a lot of friends at his house and over whiskies and sodas we discuss our trip. Our trip through Kennington suggests Limehouse and conversation turns toward that district and Thomas Burke. I get their impressions of Limehouse. It is not as tough as it has been pictured. I rather lost my temper through the discussion. One of those in the party, an actor, spoke very sneeringly of that romantic district and its people. "Talk about Limehouse nights, I thought they were tough down there. Why, they are like a lot of larks," said this big leading man.