Page:Once a Clown, Always a Clown.djvu/201

Rh defied Esau himself to match hair for hair with any of the company. The Seven Sutherland Sisters in the aggregate were a human billiard ball alongside the baldest and least whiskered member of his support. One day on the lot I noticed a horse Dorothy Gish was riding. The animal boasted a walrus mustache that was a close copy of the one that distinguished Mack Swayne in the Keystone Comedies. I borrowed the horse, led it around to Tree's studio and presented it to him, saying, "Here is a steed destined by Nature to play Macbeth." Tree accepted the recruit with crocodile tears in his eyes and was astride the animal on his first appearance.

As the end of "Macbeth" approached and Tree was about to return to New York to appear at the New Amsterdam Theater in Shakespearean repertoire, he was host to his many professional friends in the colony at a dinner, Douglas Fairbanks presiding. There were the usual postprandial speeches, beginning with Sir Herbert, who was in rare form. When every one had had his say, Fairbanks, in his zeal to keep the ball rolling, called on Miss Iris.

Miss Tree is a charming lady, not in the least