A tall, fine-looking young fellow, with a quantity of dark hair, which
he wore tucked behind his ears, obliged me with his experience as a
clown at the fairs. He came to me dressed in a fashionable “paletot,”
of a gingerbread colour, which, without being questioned on the
subject, he told me he had bought in Petticoat Lane for three shillings.
I have seldom seen a finer-built youth than this clown, for he was
proportioned like a statue. The peculiarity of his face was that, at
the junction of the forehead with the nose there was a rising, instead
of a hollow, somewhat like that which is seen in Roman antiquities.
His face, whilst talking, was entirely without emotion, and he detailed
the business outside the show, on the parade, in a sing-song voice,
like a child saying its lesson; and although he often said “This makes
’em shout with laughter,” his own face remained as solemn as a parish
clerk’s.