"I didn't go away once, Mother," he said.

She smiled at him and the strange man spoke.

"I knew you wouldn't," he said.

Jerry was dumfounded and so must Danny and Chris have been, for they
gasped. The voice that issued from the lips of the strange man was the
voice of Whiteface, the clown, the new-found father of Jerry!

Jerry's thoughts were paralyzed for a minute and he could only stare up
at Robert Bowe, ordinary citizen, in stupefaction.

So that was what his father looked like when he didn't have the clown
costume on, with his face all chalked and his lips rouged! Just a
common, ordinary, everyday, plain man, like--like Dan Mullarkey was, or
Tom Phillips or Darn Darner's father. He was not very tall and not very
big, and his face was rather long and there was quite a sprinkling of
gray in his hair.

Jerry was so terribly disappointed in his father that, after that long
stare, he gazed away and would not look up at him again. He winked his
eyes to keep the tears from coming.

"What is it, Jerry?" asked Mrs. Bowe. "Tell mother."

Jerry tried to think of something to say that wouldn't hurt his
father's feelings or his mother's, but couldn't, and he stood there in
misery and disappointment, his lips quivering and twisting and the tears
gathering on his eyelashes.