Chaplin had Zasu slathered in enough cerise paste for her to photograph like marble. Not a streak of flesh tone registered, which was brilliant, but for the first hour, she insisted on poses that covered her chest, until she had a stern talking-to by Alf’s wife. The best news was that even her tears didn’t ruin any takes: the makeup set off the illumination of the radium lights, so there was no flare.

He made Zasu a water bearer, and had her stand against composition board painted to look like the walls of the Louvre. The set was more crowded on this day than any other, and Chaplin had to ask Alf to clear a dozen people whom he did not recognize.

He had the day players called in, and Alf and Maverick explained to them that they were patrons at the museum. Among them was a serious-faced girl of fifteen whom Maverick asked to stand in back. She looked at Zasu, who was on her mark as the water bearer, as if she were witnessing history, and it made Maverick uncomfortable.

Chaplin went into costume, and returned, and, upon the clack of the focusing board, set about admiring the water bearer. He leaned on his cane, walked closer, then farther, used his fingers to make a rectangle to look at her. He called for a cut, then had Henry Bergman and Albert Austin come in as patrons of the arts. He discussed some simple business with them (“You are perfectly middle-class, with pretensions to understanding the finer things in life, which you don’t actually understand, but which makes you highly judgmental”), then sent them off to wait for a cue. “Action! Camera! Grind!” Clack went the focusing board, and he returned to his admiration of the water bearer. Only this time, the longer he looked, the deeper went his admiration. Just as he began to approach her from behind, to examine her bottom, in came Bergman and Austin, who looked first at the statue, then at the frankly lecherous Little Fellow. As if feeling the heat of their gazes, he sprang from his place and pretended to admire the discus thrower instead.

This seemed to go well, so Chaplin did another take, and another, and so on, and on the fifteenth take, the water jug slipped from the Zasu girl’s hands and cracked against the floor. It was just papier-mâché, but she cried out in shame and the noise caused Chaplin to jump in place, which embarrassed him, and then he decided there should be a way to use it.

It came so fast he couldn’t say the words in order. He collared Maverick and spoke aloud, gesturing with each idea, making sure he was writing it down: the water bearer and the discus thrower were thieves. They were hiding in the museum. Their plan was to steal everything when the museum closed. The Little Fellow would be trapped there with them.