You will find enclosed herein a bill in the amount of $17.50 from the offices of William Delaney, M.D., for services rendered to my person after the inexcusable riot you caused in Beaumont, Texas, on Sunday, November 12, 1916. I hardly need remind you that men of integrity live up to their obligations in a timely manner.

I beg to remain

Yours very truly

Hugo Black

Had the signature, with its perfectly executed blotting, been more formal, it would have come with swags and roundels.

That morning’s Los Angeles Times was on the seat. On the cover was news of the war, carnage domestic and foreign, and in the lower left corner the “Slackers” column, which he read through the letter “C,” feeling relief, then guilt. Playing with dogs!

That evening, Chaplin skipped the gym and the book, and he sat on his bed and he hated the world. Several times he jailed the thought only to have it tiptoe back like an ambitious thief. He generally felt kindness toward the world, but that feeling was oceans away, huddled on a plank.

It began with an issue of Motion Picture Magazine that he kept on a plaster gargoyle by the toilet. Motion Picture had launched a yearlong vote among readers for the Motion Picture Hall of Fame. Their explanation was that the photoplay had come of age artistically, and now it was time to select the finest exemplars of the art form. So far, a half million votes had been cast. This was, Chaplin understood, fabulous for the movies, but even more fabulous for Motion Picture Magazine.

The Twelve Immortals were, as of this date: Earle Williams (No. 12), Mary Miles Minter (No. 11), Theda Bara (No. 10), Francis X. Bushman, Anita Stewart, Pearl White, Wallace Reid, William S. Hart, Harold Lock-wood, Douglas Fairbanks as No. 3, and, in the No. 2 spot, Marguerite Clark. He hesitated here the way he did when approaching “C” in the “Slackers” column. At the top, with over eighty-five thousand votes, was Mary Pickford.

This did not cause Chaplin to hate her. It only suggested to him that Mary Pickford had the most luxurious golden curls in the history of the planet, and when they bounced in place, and she dug a finger into her dimple to eke out another win in the face of adversity, another five thousand people voted for her.

He looked at the list in detail. There were hundreds of names. At No. 37, in five-point type, between House Peters and Crane Wilbur, was Charlie Chaplin.

This made him laugh so hard he dashed from the bathroom, eager to share how idiotic it was. He wanted to telephone everyone he knew, and ask them all if House Peters had his own studio, or Crane Wilbur had a million dollars. Which of them had been parodied by Heywood Broun? Had House Peters been spotted in over eight hundred locations in one day? No, he hadn’t.