“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, though I don’t see how the secret of laughter could like anybody better than you.  You’re such a brave little boy.”

“What will the secret of laughter do?” Jerry asked in a low tone.

“It will make you happy,” replied Whiteface.  “Nothing is as bad as you think it is if only you can keep the secret of laughter at your side.  It will make you forget your sorrow and laugh and laugh till the sorrow slinks away.”

“Never to come back?” asked Jerry.

The clown’s mouth drooped again and his shoulders sunk forward.

“That’s the tragedy of it,” he said.  “Sorrow takes such a firm hold on us sometimes, especially when one is grown up, that it comes back even after the secret of laughter has driven it away.  But it is different with children; with them the secret of laughter almost always drives sorrow away for good and all and leaves them happy.”

“How can it make them happy?” asked Jerry.

“By making them forget.”

“Forget what?” pursued Jerry, puzzled.

“What made them cry,” responded the clown, “as you have.”

Then his face clouded and his white, chalky brows frowned.

“You have forgotten, haven’t you?” he asked eagerly.

“Y-y-yes,” replied Jerry, “almost.”

“Almost!” exclaimed Whiteface, very much disappointed.  “Then it has come back if you haven’t forgotten it altogether.  I wonder what it can be if the secret of laughter can’t drive it away?”

He looked up so questioningly that Jerry responded at once.  “It’s Celia
Jane.”

It was the clown’s turn to be surprised.

“Celia Jane!” he exclaimed.  “Cupid starts in so young nowadays!”

“It was not Cupid,” said Jerry, who had no more idea than the man in the moon who or what Cupid might be.

“No?” said the clown.  “That’s good!  What did Celia Jane do?”

“She cried.”

“Was that what you were crying for—­because Celia Jane cried?”

“No,” Jerry answered.  “I gave her my ticket to the circus which I got for carryin’ water for the el’funts.”

“Ah!” said the clown.  “She cried to get your ticket so she could see the circus herself.  I see.”

“No!  She gave my ticket to Danny,” pursued Jerry, and his grief was coming back so rapidly that he felt his lips begin twisting again.

“And Danny went to the circus in your place?” questioned the clown.  “And the crocodile tears of Celia Jane made you shed so many real ones!”

“Celia Jane always does what Danny wants her to,” continued Jerry.