Everybody is off the boat but the passengers. My friends stand on the dock and wave to me. I see everything in their glowing faces—loyalty, love, sadness, a few tears. There is a lump in my throat. I smile just as hard as I can to keep them from seeing. I even smile at the reporters. They're darn nice fellows. I wish I knew them better. After all, it's their job to ask questions and they have been merely doing their job with me. Just doing their jobs, as they see it. That spirit would make the world if it were universal.
England never looked more lovely. Why didn't I go here? Why didn't I do this and that? There is so much that I missed. I must come back again. Will they be glad to see me? As glad as I am to see them? I hope so. My cheek is damp. I turn away and blot out the sadness. I am not going to look back again.
A sweet little girl about eight years of age, full of laughing childhood, is coming toward me with a bubbling voice. Her very look commands me not to try to escape. I don't think I want to escape from her.
"Oh, Mr. Chaplin," gurgled the little girl, "I've been looking for you all over the boat. Please adopt me like you did Jackie Coogan. We could smash windows together and have lots of fun. I love your plays."
She takes my hand and looks up into my face. "They are so clever and beautiful. Won't you teach me like you taught him? He's so much like you. Oh, if I could only be like him."
And with a rapt look on her little face she prattles on, leaving me very few opportunities to get in a word, though I prefer to listen to her rather than talk.
I wave good-bye to my friends and then walk along with her, going up and looking back at the crowd over the rail.
Reporters are here. They scent something interesting in my affair with the little girl. I answer all questions. Then a photographer. We are photographed together. And the movie men are getting action pictures. We are looking back at my friends on shore.
The little girl asks: "Are they all actors and in the movies? Why are you so sad? Don't you like leaving England? There will be so many friends in America to meet you. Why, you should be so happy because you have friends all over the world!"
I tell her that it is just the parting—that the thought of leaving is always sad. Life is always "Good-bye." And here I feel it is good-bye to new friends, that my old ones are in America.