Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 May 1894 — A CLOWN FOR FIVE MINUTES. [ARTICLE]

A CLOWN FOR FIVE MINUTES.

He Made a Tremendous “ Hit” and It Cost Him SBOO. There sat in a fashionable restaurant the other evening a man of irongray hair and dignified bearing, who, if appearances could be relied upon, had never in his life done anything ridiculous. He was so dignified that he was almost stately. Portly, pink of complexion and erect, he was a picture of the gentleman of ease. And yet this man at one period in his life was a circus clown. Twentyfive years ago he lived in Norfolk, Va. His father, a wealthy Virginian, owned a steamboat and steamship line. To Norfolk one day came a circus. When it had closed its busness there it engaged a steamboat to take it further South. The boat stopped at several places, but everywhere, as they would say now, the show was a “frost.” When the end of the water route was reached the circus owed the boat SBOO, and had not a dollar to pay. On the boat, to look after the interests of the steamship company, was the son of the owner of the line. He telegraphed to his father explaining the situation.

“ Let the circus go on,” was the answer, “ but go with it. Collect on account whenever you can.” So the young man—the same who, twenty-five years later, made so good an appearance in a fashionable New York restaurant—became a stroller with a circus. He was with it to make collections on account, but there was nothing to collect. Business got worse; everybody, even the would-be collector, “went broke,” and still the circus wandered on. The young Virginian, who was at first regarded .as a persecuting demon, to make himself less objectionable to the circus people began to offer his services in various ways. He collected tickets, sold them, and made himself generally agreeable. One evening in a little town ‘way down South in Dixie a clown fell ill. It was necessary to have two clowns, for one said all his funny things to a a second. A circus without a clown is worse than Hamlet with the sweet prince eliminated, and so the manager went to the young Virginian. “You’ll have to be second clown to-night,” he said. “There will be nothing for you to do. We’ll paint you, chalk you and make you up.” So second clown the Son of Norfolk prepared to be. The two clowns were accustomed to make their entrance by turning a double-summersault off a springboard, landing in the ring. When the time came on that evening the Virginian made a sudden resolve. In his boyhood he had turned handsprings and summersaults. He would try it again. The first clown, the real article, made his entrance in approved style. Then came the substitute. He ran out boldly on the board and sprang. He was shot high into the air, throw-over and over, and came down with a terrific thud flat on his back. Slowly he arose, staggering weakly around the ring, on his face that look of comical agony which a man wears who has had the wind knocked out of him, He was greeted with a storm of applause. The spectators thought that that was his part—that he was a trick clown. They shouted, clapped their hands and howled with delight. Painfully bowing, he staggered out of the ring and then threw himself to the ground, gasping to get back his breath. Outside, in the ring, the crowd was roaring for him to appear again. The ringmaster came to him. “They’re crazy over you,” he said. “You’ll have to do that again for them.” “My lands!” groaned the new clown, clasping his stomach,' “Do that again? See here, you owe us SBOO. Let me off from doing that again,and we’ll call it square.”—{New York Tribune.