THE CRIME

"Whee, whee", cried my little roommate leaping to his feet, the vigorous fellow, "Whee, whee." At which sudden debacle I ran to Aunt Emma's sole contribution to our happy home and brought him the smelling salts. It was in vain. He persisted; insisted; resisted. So lowering him gently into the bathtub I discovered his secret.

He wanted to go to the circus. "But you have your tatting to do and only last night you went to a moving picture and read all the subtitles to a poor blind man who couldn't see Clara Bow and wanted. . . . But a curtain to what he wanted. Anyway, you must not go to the circus. And elephants make you sick. Now the last time you . . ."

My roommate is a sturdy fellow. Nor has he changed, in weeks. So before you could say your prayers or take a final or even find a pretty debutante, there we were at the circus with peanuts crowding their impulsive way down the leathery necks of mauve pachyderms, horses, horses, and my rooommate absent mindedly dangling a red balloon over his right tonsil.

The circus! When Lindbergh has crossed the bar in the Spirit of St. Louis and there are no more rivers to cross; when Coolidge and Rodgers play at Waldron's and an oyster is good for a hit in the ninth, then and then alone, and so forth. There are those, ladies and gentlemen, who prefer the bull fight; there are those who prefer the cock fight; and "Ghost Train" still draws crowds; but, and here may I quote Hamilton Jefferson Detroit Plymouth who said, "If a circus have but a single ring, that ring rings true to me."

"Whee, whee, whee", cried my roommate, devilish little tense. And he inserted a coughdrop in the proboscis of the ivory bearer. He still wears the evidence of that gaucherie. I hurried him to see the fat lady. "Wellesley", he whooped, "Wellesley", and bought her picture to send to a friend, named Edgell. Just then there was a cry of alarm from two Watch and Warders. I saw H. T. P. scurry to cover. And out came four ladies from Muscle Shoals, advertising Shreddel Wheat. I hurried my roommate away as fast as his little feet could tarry.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the greatest show on earth now presents for your kind approval the only lady in the world who can do a triple play with no men on in the first and Cobb at bat. With nothing up either sleeve (she's careless that way) the little lady will now perform this greatest and only performance of its kind. Rest your eyes upon her!"

My little roommate beamed. "Gee! Is she a real lady?" That went unanswered.

But the clowns were not what they were in my day, or even in yours, kind reader. Influenced by the last feeble, thwarting repercussions of the romatic movement they forgot their classic heritage; they forgot even to be funny; and they did the Black Bottom! I did not let my less critical roommate see my tears. He too, some day, will grow up and learn that we are but shadows in a shadow land, that even, even the clowns of today are. . . . . well, must I say it?

But most of all did my roommate like the fairies. His eyes opened with wonder at their gay, flowing robes, their merry whirl about the gleaming rod, pendent by their teeth. I, on the contrary was filled with worry. Once such a trapeze artist had broken that bridge, and out had come filling, artist and all. How sad and bad and mad it was, and yet . . I got some message out of it. For did not a lion tamer carry the poor artist from the arena amid cries of applauding multitudes who thought this a part of the show?

Yet here was my little friend lost in his ice cream and the sight of the revolving fairies, happy, not thinking of sorrow and misfortune and the really important things of life. How he got home and why I shall be glad to include in my next thesis, "Middle Broken English and Who Broke It or the Graduate Students Dream."