In the early 1950s, I had a children’s picture book about eight by ten inches concerning a clown who was forced to leave the circus.  I can’t recall why he had to leave, but he had done something wrong.  What lingers in my memory is a closing illustration of the clown, dressed in a blue clown suit, oversized shoes, red wig and nose, walking down a road with a pick and shovel over his right shoulder, perhaps into the setting sun, though I’m not sure of that detail.  He had to leave the circus and become a ditch-digger.  I thought it was the saddest image I had ever seen and the saddest fate I could imagine.  I still think so.