Case with 4 Clowns by Leo Bruce Page A

“fat man.” There was little flabbiness about him, and except for the roll of flesh under his ears which quivered whenever he turned his head or laughed, he was muscular and overgrown rather than paunchy or dropsical. His movements were swift and sure, and his long, rather fine hands, were ludicrous on so large a body. They reminded one of a deep-sea diver, in his solid inflated costume, and yet from which protrudes his naked unprotected hands. Nevertheless, his bulk was, at close quarters, slightly embarrassing, and Beef found it difficult to hit immediately on a topic of conversation. His eyes, roving round the wagon hopefully, were caught by the mounted mask of a large badger which hung above the door.
    â€œThat’s a nice badger’s head,” he said. “I’ve got one nearly as large as that over the hat-stand in my hall. What do you carry a thing like that around for? Luck?”
    Clem looked up at the mask curiously, as if seeing it for the first time. “A farmer gave us that,” he said. “After he’d seen the show he said he wanted to give us a present. But he was too hard up or something, and all he could afford was the stuffed head of that badger which had been killed on hisground a few weeks before. We kept it here because of its face. It suits us, you know.”
    â€œSuits you?” queried Beef.
    â€œYes. You know the country name for the badger? Brock. Brock the badger. Old Clown Face. We thought it was a good mascot—so there it is.”
    Beef had no intention of entering into a discussion on the fauna of these isles, so he became ruminative for a while, and then at last said: “You know, I’ve often wondered how one starts on a job like yours. I mean, did you always want to be a clown, or did you just drift into it like any other job?”
    Sid Bolton chuckled rumblingly. “In my case there wasn’t anything else to do,” he said.
    â€œHow was that?” asked Beef.
    â€œI used to be shown as a fat boy on the fair-grounds,” explained Sid. “But after about six years of that I stopped being what you might call a boy, and I stopped getting any fatter. So there I was in a cleft-stick. I was too old to be a fat boy, and too small to be a fat man. I tried to go on the music-halls and sing comic songs, but I didn’t go down very well. The managers used to get letters saying how disgusting it was me being on the stage, and after a time they refused to engage me. I couldn’t take an ordinary job—I get in my own way too much—so here I am in the circus. It makes the kids laugh, anyway.”
    Sid grinned cheerfully at Beef, almost as if he had been telling of the misfortunes of a stranger, and not of his own life. He seemed to find something irresistibly funny in the potted biography he had just given Beef, and turned back to the mirror with a wide grin on his face.
    â€œWell, I don’t know,” said Beef. “It’s a funny world. When I was a kid I used to go to circuses, and I didn’t used to think the clowns were really men at all. Special sort of animal, Iused to think they were. Funny and so on, but not really human.”
    â€œMost children think something like that,” commented Clem.
    â€œBut the kids are the ones that enjoy clowns the most, aren’t they?” asked Beef.
    â€œNot really,” said Clem. “Now you can tell that by the sort of show we put up. If you’ve noticed, the afternoon show isn’t quite so good as the evening one. Same jokes, same turns and everything. But it hasn’t got the go in it somehow. In a way, it’s the audience that makes the show. Now you take the show we shall be putting on in a fortnight’s time. That’s the best show we shall do in the whole tour. It’s a special Jubilee show on the Circus’s 25th birthday. Every year on the day the Circus started we have a special performance, and it’s the feeling of