Page:Once a Clown, Always a Clown.djvu/270

ONCE A CLOWN, ALWAYS A CLOWN in the Roman Bible as in the King James version. At another post-Gambol banquet, Patrick Francis told in his delightful way of some droll comment evoked from the immature mind of his seven-year-old daughter in reflection upon the sixth Commandment, "Thou shalt not commit adultery."

Rupert Hughes, the next speaker, remarked his surprise and chagrin that one of such brilliant attainments as the previous speaker, should be so little at home among the Commandments. When he went to Sunday-school, Mr. Hughes said, the Commandment in question was the seventh and had held that position for some four thousand years. Mr. Murphy retorted that he knew his decalogue thoroughly, and suggested that Mr. Hughes had been too long out of Sunday-school.

Augustus Thomas, who was presiding, intervened with his accustomed savoir faire. "I regret," said Mr. Thomas, "that so delicate a question as the numerical value of the Commandments delivered upon Sinai should have arisen in the club and led to controversy between two such gifted members, for after all, on questions of morality, all Lambs are at sixes and sevens."