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'We travelled about the country, and had no fixed place to live in. Father's a; Sissy whispered the awful word, 'a clown. 'To make the people laugh? said Louisa, with a nod of intelligence. 'Yes. But they wouldn't laugh sometimes, and then father cried. Lately, they very often wouldn't laugh, and he used to come home despairing. Father's not like most.
"A golden circus," Ingrid said. "I made a series. The clown is my favorite, but he's too sad for a wedding." The chairs were filling. Joe took his seat next to Sally in the front row. Ingrid sat behind them with Max. A bridesmaid, six months pregnant, wearing a light blue flowered dress, stood prettily on the bluff, her hands clasped around lace and a bouquet of white roses.
Not for worlds would he have subjected himself to such buffoonery had he known. It was not the sport of a gentleman; it was the play of a circus clown! He watched with horrified disgust as the Scot's grimy face and tousled head emerged from the canvas cavern. "Four minutes and five seconds," called the umpire. Andy Black stepped confidently forward amid a burst of applause.
But his natural gift was to be a mountebank, a clown, a circus Hercules. By stiffening one of his senseless arms he could bring down roars of applause. By years of bitter labour with his pen he earned the barest living. The muscles that a porter might have, offered him opulence, because it was tougher by a few degrees than the flesh of other men.
Don't ye know that, you ass? Here! we'll throw you back something for yourself if you will show us the cave and save us trouble, for we know which it is by the token of the red stone and twisted ash. Ho! take What's become of the clown? He has run off. Discreet fellow!" For Stead had disappeared in the black darkness behind the hut.
"I have wheels on, and if the Elephant wears his roller skates that will make us both even. We could have the race to-night, perhaps." "Well, I hope you have jolly times when I am gone," said the White Rocking Horse. "Try to amuse yourselves." "We will," answered the Calico Clown. "But perhaps you will come back to see us, as the Sawdust Doll once did." "I'm afraid not," neighed the Horse.
If you will stop to consider, you will recall that I have said nothing at which you might possibly take offence." To this the clown made no reply. All at once he straightened up with a snarl that reminded Phil of the cough of the tiger out in the menagerie as the beast struck viciously at its keeper when the latter chanced to step too close to the bars of the cage. Diaz stood all a-quiver.
For an instant it seemed seriously likely that he would stride across the footlights; then he turned a glare at the clown playing the piano; and then he burst in silence out of the room. The priest had only watched for a few more minutes the absurd but not inelegant dance of the amateur harlequin over his splendidly unconscious foe.
The love, or grief, or indignation, of an enlightened and refined character is not only expressed in a different language, but is in itself a different emotion from the love, or grief, or anger, of a clown, a tradesman, or a market-wench.
Then, again, of those whom we know best and love best on earth, and who know and love us best too, oh, what mutual ignorance must necessarily exist of innumerable thoughts and feelings lying deep clown in our inner man, half hidden, half revealed, even to ourselves, but altogether incommunicable and unutterable by word or sign to others!
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