Page:Once a Clown, Always a Clown.djvu/172

ONCE A CLOWN, ALWAYS A CLOWN "Up! Up!" with a flirt of the wrist. The property man would raise the wavering pan, his face purpling with the effort, and James enjoying the prank like any schoolboy, all the while declaiming the noble periods of Virginius.

At the very climax of the scene and the play, the pan wavered again. Jimmy made a mighty try at recovery, but agonized muscles would not respond and the brimming pan fell with a horrible splash and crash. And with a much louder crash, the high-flown drama came down in a nose dive into the custard pie of the ridiculous.

The good people of Richmond did not award the mantle of Edwin Booth to Mr. James.