Page:Once a Clown, Always a Clown.djvu/279

Rh argument was felt. Silver and bills showered into the street, and Roxy did her bit to win the War. At other times I would ask the crowd how much they would pay to see Lena, weight five tons, sit upon my prostrate form. Lena and I played to as high as $110 in this act. After six years of separation, I encountered the former Hippodrome elephants at Atlantic City last summer, and I think I never have been more flattered than by their instant and fond recognition. They were in the midst of their morning dip in the surf when they spied me, and they left no doubts in the minds of the bathers but that we were old friends.

The private charities of The Lambs and of actors in general are less spectacular but continuous. I have seen two to three thousand dollars raised quietly in the club in an afternoon for a family left destitute by the death of an unfortunate or improvident member. They give quite as freely of their time, their art and the milk of human kindness. Because it could have happened only of actors and illustrates the kindliness of our kind, I set down here a strange and dramatic story told me by Dodson Mitchell last summer when both of us were playing in Philadelphia.