The Champion

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Charlie_Chaplin.jpg

A group of us had gone to the pier to have dinner at a little fish restaurant, and while waiting to be served, Charlie Chaplin noticed a sign across the way that read, ‘Scientific Handwriting Analysis. Ten Cents.’ Charlie decided, as a joke, to try the expert out. Aldous [Huxley] stopped him. It would be too simple for a swami to ‘read’ for Charlie because his appearance was familiar to practically everyone in the world. On the other hand no one would recognize Aldous. So Charlie wrote a few words on a scrap of paper which Aldous took to the lady. He returned from his interview in a mood of deep concentration and reported what had happened. The lady had studied the writing a moment and then looked up at Aldous suspiciously. ‘Are you trying to make fun of me, sir?’ she asked. Aldous assured her he was not and wanted to know why she asked. She paused and studied Charlie’s writing more closely. Then, still suspicious, she asked, ‘Did you write this while you were in an unnatural or cramped position?’ Aldous then admitted that the writing was not his own but he assured the lady that it had been done quite normally. ‘Then,’ said the expert, ‘I don’t know what to say, because if what you tell me is true, the man who wrote this is a God-given genius.’

— Anita Loos in Aldous Huxley: A Memorial Volume, ed. Julian Huxley, 1965