Page:Once a Clown, Always a Clown.djvu/213

Rh There is another point upon which our satisfaction is not mutual. I detest the prevalent bombast, bad taste and swollen pride of the mincing, simpering, swaggering, bleating barbarians who pretty well efface the normal men and women of the business. In Oklahoma you may see chickens roosting on rosewood grand pianos in the farmyards of Osage Indians, drunk on oil royalties. Not all the Osage Indians are in Oklahoma. I am not speaking of morals, but of manners.

There is a man in one West Coast studio whose sole job is to follow a director about the lot carrying a chair to thrust under him should the director choose to sit. In five years this fine gentleman has sat wherever the spirit moved him and never looked behind him nor hesitated, secure in the knowledge that the menial was there with a chair in position. I have lived those five years in the impious hope that this shadow might some day be visited with a momentary lapse and the famous director sit unexpectedly and violently upon the floor, but at the hour of going to press this consummation so devoutly to be wished still is a wish. When this august personage wishes to communicate his royal command to any member of his court so forgetful