Page:Once a Clown, Always a Clown.djvu/124

ONCE A CLOWN, ALWAYS A CLOWN A man being as young as he feels, I am a flaming youth. My voice and limbs still perform easily all that I ever have asked of them, and quite unconsciously, I say "Sir" to men younger in years. In Philadelphia, last spring, I had my tonsils removed on a Sunday morning and played as usual on Monday night without missing a performance. I was interested to read a few weeks later that Mr. Gene Tunney, a lad not yet thirty, who fights for a living, also had parted with his tonsils. In a bedside bulletin Mr. Tunney's manager assured an anxious public that the patient would be out again within a week.

Temperamentally oblivious of the passage of time, I am periodically startled at being confronted with some tangible evidence of the fact that much water has flowed under the bridge. I was flabbergasted when my son told me at twenty-three that he was about to marry. For a week I had rheumatic pains, and that was twelve years ago.

Two years ago I played a five weeks' engagement in Newark, New Jersey. Every Monday night the mayor and party occupied a box, and always he came behind the scenes for a word with the company. On one visit he