We enter a bar. The place is doing a flourishing business. There are a number of pictures of my brother Syd and myself all over the walls, in character and straight. The place is packed to-night. It must be a very popular resort.
"What will you have?" I feel breezy. "Give the whole saloon a drink."
Aubrey whispers, "Don't let them know you are here." He says this for me.
But I insist. "Introduce me to all of them." I must get him more custom.
He starts quietly whispering to some of his very personal friends: "This is my cousin. Don't say a word."
I speak up rather loudly. "Give them all a drink." I feel a bit vulgar to-night. I want to spend money like a drunken sailor. Even the customers are shocked. They hardly believe that it's Charlie Chaplin, who always avoids publicity, acting in this vulgar way.
I am sure that some of them don't believe despite many assurances. A stunt of my cousin's. But they drink, reverently and with reserve, and then they bid me good night, and we depart quietly, leaving Bayswater as respectable as ever.
To the house for dinner, after which some one brings forth an old family album. It is just like all other family albums.
"This is your great-granduncle and that is your great-grandmother. This is Aunt Lucy. This one was a French general."
Aubrey says: "You know we have quite a good family on your father's side." There are pictures of uncles who are very prosperous cattle ranchers in South Africa. Wonder why I don't hear from my prosperous relations.