I am in another world. Southampton, though I have been there before, is absolutely strange to me. There is nothing familiar. I feel as though I am in a foreign country. Crowds, increasing with every minute. What lovely women, different from American women. How, why, I cannot tell.
There is a beautiful girl peering at me, a lovely English type. She comes to the carriage and in a beautiful, musical voice says, "May I have your signature, Mr. Chaplin?" This is thrilling. Aren't English girls charming? She is just the type you see in pictures, something like Hall Caine's Gloria in The Christian—beautiful auburn hair, about seventeen.
Seventeen! What an age! I was that once—and here, in England. It seems very long ago.
Tom Geraghty and the bunch, we are all so excited we don't know just what to do or how to act. We cannot collect ourselves. Bursting with pent-up questions of years of gathering, overflowing with important messages for one another, we are talking about the most commonplace things. I find that I am not listening to them, nor they to me. I am just taking it all in, eyes and ears.
An English "bobby." Everything is different. Taking the tickets. The whole thing is upside down. The locking us in our compartment. I look at the crowds. The same old "prop" smile is working. They smile. They cheer. I wave my hat. I feel silly, but it seems that they like it. Will the train never start? I want to see something outside the station.
I want to see the country. They are all saying things. I do not know what they all think of me, my friends. I wish they were not here. I would love to be alone so that I could get it all.
We are moving. I sit forward as though to make the train go faster. I want a sight of Old England. I want more than a sight.
Now I see the English country. New houses going up everywhere. New types for labouring men. More new houses. I have never seen Old England in such a frenzy of building. The brush fields are rather burned up. This is something new for England, for it is always so green. It is not as green as it used to be. But it is England, and I am loving every mile of it.
I discover that everything is Los Angeles in my compartment, with the exception of my cousin and Sonny. Here I am in the midst of Hollywood. I have travelled six thousand miles to get away from Hollywood. Motion pictures are universal. You can't run away from them. But I am not bothering much, because I am cannily figuring on shaking the whole lot of them after the usual dinner and getting off by myself.
And I am getting new thrills every minute. There are people waiting all along the line, at small stations, waiting for the train to pass. I know they are waiting to see me. It's a wonderful sensation—everybody so affectionate. Gee! I am wondering what's going to happen in London?