Page:Once a Clown, Always a Clown.djvu/241

Rh at the scene. He offers himself as a horrible example of a misspent life, but Youth flouts his moralizing.

In the midst of the orgy the model, garbed for his rôle, appears without warning on the platform. A woman sees him first and faints without a sound. Another woman espies him, her wine glass shatters on the floor and she screams hysterically. An awesome hush follows, every eye turned toward the figure on the platform, and the old roué, standing aghast for a moment, drops to the floor, dead.

When I was Shepherd, the great French actor Coquelin was the guest of the club at a Gambol. The program included a little drama of two characters played by W. H. Thompson and Henry Dixey. They were two old men, companions in young manhood, who had drifted apart in life and tastes, but who continued annually to meet on the birthday of one. Each had a single son. Thompson had reared his boy with a rod of iron. Dixey had been an indulgent parent. Repeatedly Thompson had prophesied disaster for his friend's leniency, and in fulfillment of the prediction, word comes in the midst of the annual reunion that Dixey's son is under arrest. But it is discovered shortly