“Very good!—thanks, Boum-Boum!”
“Doctor,” said the clown to the doctor, “do not be jealous—It seems to me that my grimaces will do him as much good as your prescriptions!”
The father and the mother wept, but this time from joy.
Until little François was on his feet again a carriage stopped every day before the dwelling of a workman in the street of the Abessess, at Montmartre, and a man got out with a gay powdered face, enveloped in an overcoat with the collar turned back, and underneath it one could see a clown’s costume.
“What do I owe you, monsieur?” said Jacques, at last, to the master-clown when the child took his first walk, “for now I owe you something!”
The clown stretched out his two soft, Herculean hands to the parents.
“A shake of the hand!” said he.
Then placing two great kisses on the once more rosy cheeks of the child:
“And (laughing) permission to put on my visiting-card:
“Boum-Boum