Page:Once a Clown, Always a Clown.djvu/278

ONCE A CLOWN, ALWAYS A CLOWN the celebrities of the stage waited on the tables and later gave a show.

In recognition of the money the members subscribed and induced the public to subscribe in the Liberty Bond campaigns, the Government paid us the honor of naming a 9700-ton Shipping Board freighter The Lambs, and the ship has done us proud. Out of that great war-built or acquired fleet of something like sixteen hundred merchant vessels, The Lambs is one of the few not tied up, junked or lost. It has steamed two hundred thousand miles since 1919 and is in a round-the-world service from New York to the Philippines and the Dutch East Indies to-day.

In the Red Cross drives the Lambs and the Friars united in parading New York as strolling minstrels. Fifth Avenue from Twenty-sixth to Forty-second streets was roped off for us. I was playing at the Hippodrome at the time and performed with the Hippodrome elephants.

"If I induce this lady to put her mouth down and kiss me, will you make it worth her while?" I used to ask the crowd, pointing to Roxy, one of the pachyderms. "Surely you can't expect her to kiss me for nothing." The force of this