THE CLOWN AND THE COLUMBINE 
By Molly Elliot Seawell 
Illustrations by Lucius W. Hitchcock 
n F laughter be the daughter of 
sin, then Perinot must have 
been the chief of sinners. 
No man ever aroused more 
unextinguishable laughter 
than did Perinot, comedian 
of the class called low. He had the true 
clown’s physiognomy—a wide, sensitive 
mouth capable of expressing everything and 
nothing at all; a serious nose, and the low 
comedian’s eye, melancholy and introspec¬ 
tive. Sombreness is the first characteristic 
of the clown. Men will not tolerate a mer¬ 
ry clown. To be merry inside as well as 
outside is more than envious human nature 
can stand. The comedian must show his 
kinship with the sad race of men by making 
them see that while he commands their 
laughter, he is no more happy than they. 
Comedy must ever be weeping behind her 
mask. 
Do you know what a roulette is ? In gen¬ 
eral, it means a gypsy caravan, but its scope 
has become enlarged and sometimes it 
means a whole travelling theatrical com¬ 
pany. Some of the best comedians in the 
whole world have been evolved from the 
roulette. That was Perinot’s beginning. 
His roulette consisted of three long cov¬ 
ered wagons. The rear wagon contained 
such rude and trifling stage accessories as 
Perinot’s plays demanded. But Perinot, 
like Thespis in his cart, did not require 
much scenery. In this last wagon rode the 
Poillon brothers—very good actors, both of 
them, and handy men besides. Henri was 
tall and broad, while Gustave was so small, 
beardless, and pretty, that he could do 
women’s parts extremely well. 
In the next wagon rode, with the bed¬ 
ding and trunks, that excellent woman, 
Madame Toutant, with her husband and 
her son, Auguste. Madame Toutant was 
stout and large-waisted, but a capable ac¬ 
tress. The audiences laughed at her when 
she waddled on the stage, but before long 
her comic antics made them forget her 
stout figure and double chin, and they saw 
670 " 
only her fine eyes and heard only her rich 
voice. Toutant himself was a dull re¬ 
spectable man, and Auguste the son was as 
near nothing as could be well imagined. He 
was beautiful beyond expression, perfectly 
obedient to Madame Toutant as indeed 
was Toutant himself, and his beauty was an 
excellent foil to the fascinating ugliness of 
Perinot. 
In the first wagon rode in state Perinot, 
the proprietor of the whole outfit. With 
him rode Columbine. She had another 
name, but it was generally forgotten by 
everybody including herself. Columbine 
was picked up on.the roadside one summer 
morning when she was sixteen years old. 
She was in rags and her toes were peeping 
through her shoes, and she was weeping 
vociferously as she watched a regiment 
marching away to the next town.. 
Madame Toutant, the kindest creature 
on earth, spoke to the girl. Columbine ad¬ 
mitted that she was weeping for a soldier in 
the departing regiment. The regiment was 
going by train, and the roulette was travel¬ 
ling in the same direction. So, when the 
girl begged Madame Toutant to give her a 
lift, Madame Toutant persuaded Perinot to 
let the girl go with them. 
“She is an ugly thing,” said Perinot, sur¬ 
veying at long range Columbine, with her 
touselled red-brown hair, her swollen eyes, 
her gawky figure. 
“She would not be so bad-looking if she 
had some clothes and shoes,” said Madame 
Toutant. 
The upshot of it was that the girl was 
given a place in Perinot’s own wagon,where 
she sobbed long and hard after her lover, a 
young blacksmith, who was glad to get rid 
of her. Perinot only meant to give her a 
lift for a few miles, and at the end of six 
years Columbine was still sitting by his 
side, driving old Blanc, the stout Normandy 
nag who drew the cart. Nobody could com¬ 
plain then that Columbine was ugly. She 
had developed a vivid irregular beauty that 
made her exceedingly dangerous. This she 
