Page:Once a Clown, Always a Clown.djvu/196

ONCE A CLOWN, ALWAYS A CLOWN chucked it under the chin and lifted the head in the manner of a photographer arranging a sitter.

The close-ups of the snake taken, Walsh gingerly picked it up some six inches back of its rearing head and bared his bosom. This was followed in the completed film by a flash-back showing me galloping madly on Rosinante to the rescue. In his intense distaste of the snake, Walsh unconsciously squeezed it too tightly for its comfort and it turned and struck him on the forefinger. The actor screamed and hurled the rattler at least thirty feet into the air. Rice shot out an arm and caught his pet as it descended. It coiled around his arm, he stroked its head soothingly and the snake was restored to placidity in an instant. The scene had to be retaken and Walsh was careful the second time to seize the reptile just behind the head.

After we had used up five hundred feet on the scene, some pedant from the intelligence corps sent out a memorandum to the effect that the rattlesnake was not indigenous to Spain. Walsh balked at any further association with the family Ophidia, so the rattler's castanets were painted out in the developing room and it appeared ultimately on the screen as a Spanish adder minus the alarm-clock tail.