At the same time, arms fatigued and cold, Leland was staring through his partner, Johnson, considering the shape that the gratitude of Mr. Charlie Chaplin might take. He imagined lecturing Chaplin; he had read Motion Picture Weekly, and he knew the difference between pretending to be on a dinghy in the movies, and testing your luck on such spirited seas as those near St. George Reef. “But you know, Mr. Chaplin,” he would say, “this does make quite a scenario, don’t you think?” And how else could Charlie respond but to stand from his log, place one arm up on Wheeler’s solid shoulder, pump his hand, and say, “I hadn’t considered it, Leland Wheeler, but you’re right,” and “Leland Wheeler is a splendid kind of name. Come to the studio—we need strong arms and strong jawlines,” and Leland constructed and reconstructed these statements with different kinds of English accents, from Ascot-races lordly to cockney chauffeur, since he wasn’t quite sure what Chaplin sounded like, eventually settling on the accent he’d heard a slapstick comedian use at the Redding Music Hall, British with a Jewish or Gypsy tint, he didn’t really know the specifics; but such speculation swirled in its own vortices, and he concluded first that this rescue might be his own salvation, then: might there be a filmed re-enactment, but this time with bathing beauties?

It is the nature of wishes and their potential fulfillment to travel faster than anything shackled to earth, especially a rowboat straining against a current that all but groaned in its desire to blow into la pared de la muerte. So Leland Wheeler’s mind could travel from sea to shore to the road leading seven hundred miles south to the bare ankles of the engaging backlot sirens who fluttered and yawned at the Mutual Studios of Los Angeles, in the approximate time it took Chaplin’s boat to be sucked into the whirlpool and begin an awful, irresistible spin.

Leland was calling out to Johnson, who called back; Leland could hear just the harder consonants of a prayer. Chaplin noticed them—he visibly perked up, stood, and leaned forward until the boat tipped, and he was forced, hands on hat, to lean back. He smiled, recognizing not the danger but the rescue, and he again tipped his hat, face breaking into the smile of one about to be saved. But his boat was already turning, turning slowly, turning almost gently, in obedience to Coriolis, and the men in the rowboat were shouting themselves hoarse, and Chaplin, in order to keep them in sight, began to march in place, counterclockwise. He was in effect stationary, even as the boat was beginning to spin under his feet. Leland shouted, “No!”