“The clown’s features suddenly fell calm and he jumped to his feet and pirouetted on his heels with little graceful leaps in the air, as though he were light as a feather and going to take flight. Jerry was sure that that was the clown’s way of rejoicing at having made him laugh.

Then the clown was suddenly sitting in front of Jerry again. “So you’ve found the secret,” he remarked in a very human and pleasant voice.

“What secret?” asked Jerry.

The clown whispered in his ear, “The secret of laughter.”

“The secret of laughter?” repeated Jerry wonderingly.

“Shush!” warned Whiteface, looking cautiously about. “Don’t let anybody know you’ve found it till it’s had time to get used to you. It might like somebody else better and leave you for that somebody else”—Lebbeus Mitchell (from “The Circus Came to Town”, public domain, 1921)