THE CLOWNS
I
"THE difference between the two Henry Brothers," a dramatic critic had written of them, jocularly, "is the difference between the realist who observes the modesty of nature, and the romantic artist who adds one to truth and begins where the realist leaves off."
They were "The Henry Brothers" on the programs; but they were "Hen Sutley" and "Harry Burls" in private life; and they were the "star" clowns of the 'New York Amphitheater. Their dressing-room was a fireproof cement-and-metal cell, as small as a bathroom and as full as a wardrobe—with parts of costumes hanging from hooks, dangling from clothes' lines, curled on steam pipes, heaped on stools, spread on trunk-tops, packed on shelves and even tied to door knobs—with battered hats and tangled wigs, pink fleshings and striped tights, underclothes and foot wear, bandana handkerchiefs and paper collars—with disorder crowded on discomfort in the temperature of a Turkish bath and the odors of a soiled-clothes' basket.
The lean Sutley sat in his undershirt, on his make-up stool, sewing a rent in his tights. His face was the poisonous white of a death's head. His eyelids were blackened. His mouth, black too, was painted in the
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