Page:Once a Clown, Always a Clown.djvu/230

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ONCE A CLOWN, ALWAYS A CLOWN

be revived in 1922 by John Golden, the present owner of the former Greene estate. Greene, who now lives in California, returns each year to act as Collie. But the actor is such an urbanite that he is awkward in the country. Charley Hoyt, the playwright, bequeathed his pleasant country estate at Charlestown, New Hampshire, to The Lambs, intending it to be a restful resort for the members. No one, however, could be induced to get that far from Broadway except on pay; the club sold the New Hampshire property and invested the money in the present building.

The Lambs are at their most frolicsome at the Gambols. The first Gambol was held a year after I became one of them. The club had been indulging in occasional windy banquets and Thomas Manning, who was treasurer, led a revolt. "I grow weary of these feats of dearly bought eloquence which cost so much and return so little," he protested. Clay Greene advanced the suggestion that a mimic theater be built in the dining room of the Twenty-sixth Street house, to pay the back rent of which, by the way, he had advanced one thousand dollars shortly before, one third of all the money he possessed. A makeshift stage was thrown

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