Page 104 - 1918 VES Meteor

cJ\I!ETEOR.,
VoL. III DECEMBER, llll8 No.1
~be Q.Clo\un
Julcs was a clown. Tie was the leading clown in the country's largest circus. For ten years, now, he had spent the summer days cavorting within the great white tent, and the nights sleeping on the long circus train. IIis position as chief fun-maker of a great show gaxe him a large salary, and his associates accorded him the respect that is given any one that excels, no mntter what their profession. Yet Jules was not happy, nor did he feel any glow of pride in his success. For he had a past, and it was not the past of most celebrated circus performers. He did not come of a circus family, and had not been raised amid the traditions and lore of the saw- dust ring. lie felt no pride in his calling, unlike little Grimaluini, who came of a famous family of F1·ench circus- men, and whose earliest recollections were of Pierrot, the old clown, whitening his face fo1· the evening performance. To G1·imaldini the blaring band and the surging crowds were as meat and drink, but to Jules they were a part and plot of a hideous play in which fate forced him to star. The "big 'top" held no allure for him save as the scene of drudgery, where he must play the fool to earn his daily bread. He felt his condition to be a penance, a punishment, as indeed it was.
Twenty-two years before his advent into the circus Jules :Mason bad been a promising student in one of our greatest seats of learning. He excelled in the classroom, displaying a special aptitude for law and rhetoric. On the campus be was popular, and one of the chief reasons for his popularity was