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<h2>THE STERN EDUCATION OF CLOWNS</h2> <ANTIMG style="float: left; height: 100px;" src="images/il001.jpg" alt="A" /> clown out of work for many weeks had trudged the country roads, footsore and hungry, vainly seeking an engagement. At length, one afternoon, he arrived at a certain village and spied the canvas tent and the painted wagons of a traveling circus. This sight put a pale hope into his sad heart, and he approached the tent as bravely as he could to find the proprietor of the show. Sad as was his heart, his face looked sadder; and he did not, it is to be feared, make a very impressive appearance, as at last he found the proprietor sitting on the side of the sawdust ring, eating lunch with the Columbine. The circus proprietor was large and swarthy and brutal to look on, and his sullen, cruel eyes looked sternly at the little clown, who, between a sad heart and a long-empty stomach, had very little courage left in his frame. [Pg 104] "Well!" roared the proprietor. "What is it?" The little clown explained his profession and his need of an engagement; and stood there, hat in hand, with tremulous knees. The circus proprietor looked at him a long time in contemptuous silence, and then, with an ugly sneer, said: "Have you ever had your heart broken?" "Indeed I have," answered the clown. "For to have your heart broken is part of the business of a clown." "How many times?" "Six." "Not enough," answered the proprietor, roughly, turning again to his lunch with the Columbine. "Get it broken again and come back; then perhaps we can talk business." And the little clown went away; but he had hardly gone a few yards before his heart broke for the seventh time—because of the bitterness of the world. Yet, being wise, he waited a day or two, living as best he could along the country roads, and then at length he came back about noon to the circus, and again the proprietor was eating lunch with the Columbine, and again he looked up, sullen and sneering, and said: [Pg 105] "Well?" The clown explained that his heart had been broken for the seventh time. "Good," said the circus proprietor. "Wait till I have eaten lunch and we will talk business." And the clown sat at the side of the ring, and the proprietor and the Columbine ate and laughed as if he were not there. At length, finishing a tankard of ale, and wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, the circus proprietor arose and beckoned the clown to come to him. At the same time he took a long ringmaster's whip, and the Columbine took one end of a skipping-rope, while he held the other. "Now," said the circus proprietor, "while we twirl the skipping-rope you are to dance over it, and at the same time I will lash your shins with this whip; and if, as you skip over the rope, you can laugh and sing—like a child dancing on blue flowers in a meadow—I will give you"—the proprietor hesitated a moment—"six dollars a week." So it was that the clown at last got an engagement. THE END <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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