Page:Once a Clown, Always a Clown.djvu/266

ONCE A CLOWN, ALWAYS A CLOWN Never guilty of a discourtesy, the immaculate Drew sat in the Turkish-bath temperature of the booth for twelve minutes, awaiting the other voice. He shifted the receiver from his right ear to his left and back to the right, he fidgeted and squirmed, and with his free hand mopped his streaming face. Meanwhile Nash and a growing audience fought to keep their mirth from penetrating the booth. Restoratives had to be applied when John finally slapped the receiver on to the hook and burst into the open again.

Drew was sitting in the club in 1906 reading a letter from his nephew, Jack Barrymore, reciting Jack's experiences in the San Francisco earthquake. He wrote that the first shock had precipitated him into a bathtub of water he had just drawn. Later, when attempting to cross to Oakland, he had been impressed by Funston's troops and put to work clearing the streets.

"It takes a convulsion of Nature to make my nephew take a bath and the United States army to put him to work," Drew sighed aloud.

Hugh Ford and Hap Ward collaborated in a more elaborate practical joke once that had for