A NEW ACT
That part of the audience near the tank was instantly in an uproar,
and persons farther off were wondering what had happened.
“Get him out!”
“He’ll be drowned!”
“Man overboard!”
These were only a few of the cries uttered by the crowd.
Meanwhile the usher and some of the special officers who traveled
with the circus to preserve order did not know what to do. Several of
them gathered about the tank, and some one summoned Jim Tracy from
the ring where he was putting a squad of horses through their paces.
“Some rube fell in the tank while chasing the seal, eh?” remarked Jim
Tracy. “Well, I’ll get him out if I have to use an elephant hook. Who
is he?”
“I don’t know,” the man answered. “I never saw him before. He was one
of the crowd. Just jumped up out of his seat and rushed after the
seal. It was funny, in a way.”
“Was it?” asked Jim. “I’ll make it funny for him if he tries to spoil
one of our best acts!”
The ring-master rushed over to the tank, and, hastening up the steps
so he could look down in the tank, he cried:
“Here, you rube, come out of that! What do you mean, anyhow?”
Jim gestured violently, for he happened to think that the person
under water could not hear what was being said.
And then to the surprise of the ring-master, as well as to the
astonishment of the crowd and the ushers, the stranger in the tank,
who had remained under water all this while, calmly took off a false
moustache and revealed the features of Joe Strong.
As if that was not enough, Joe proceeded to take off his clothes, the
big boots and other “make-up” of a countryman, and reveal himself in
a suit similar to Benny’s--the same suit Joe had worn when he did the
tank act.
“Well--I’ll--be--jiggered!” exclaimed Jim Tracy, and there was no
concealing his surprise. Joe had “put one over” on him and the rest
of the circus folk, as well as fooled the public, giving them all a
good joke to laugh over.
Then Joe and Ben proceeded to do a sort of team act in the tank,
holding their breath under water, while about them swam the seal
and, in the outer tank, the goldfish.
It was a big “hit” and the crowd appreciated the act, applauding
loudly and long.
“I thought it was a real farmer.”
“So did I!”
“Didn’t he act naturally?”
“And wasn’t it funny the way he chased the seal, and fell in after
it?”
Thus commented the persons in the audience one to another, laughing
meanwhile at Joe’s clever act.
When our hero came out, leaving Benny to do the long-holding-breath
act alone, Jim Tracy spoke.
“Is that what you were planning to do to put some ginger in the show?”
“It was,” answered Joe with a smile. “Do you think I succeeded?”
“You surely did. We’ve got to have that at every performance after
this, even if we have to cut out your trapeze work. How’d you happen
to think of it?”
“Oh, it just sort of came to me. I had planned, after talking to
you, to do a sort of team act with Ben, and he agreed to it. Then
it occurred to me that it would go better if it could come about
unexpectedly. So I told him what I was going to do, but I didn’t let
on to you for fear you wouldn’t like it. Then, too, I wanted to make
it as natural as possible, so the public wouldn’t guess that the
ushers were in the game. So no one knew it but Ben and me, unless it
was Lizzie. I think she must have known me, in spite of my make-up
and get-up.”
“I think it likely, Joe,” laughed the ring-master. “And so you togged
yourself up and put one over on all of us?”
“Yes, a countryman’s rig isn’t hard to get, and I bought the false
moustache. I was afraid it might come off in the water, and that
you’d know me, but it stuck on.”
“You had me completely fooled,” confessed the ring-master. “Of course
we can’t fool the ushers again, but I’ll get a good man, and coach
him, so he can pretend to think you are a real countryman as he
chases you. It will go with the public all right, especially as we
show only one day in a town, as a rule, and to a different audience
afternoon and night. Yes, we’ll keep that as a permanent feature,
Joe. It was great!”
From then on Joe had to do the trick twice a day. It was decided to
have him drop his trapeze work, and ride the motor-cycle on the high
wire as soon as his special apparatus should be received from the
place where he had stored it.
But, for the present, as soon as Joe had finished his act on the
bars, rings and ropes, he hurried to his dressing room, and attired
himself in the rig of a farmer. Then he would stroll into the big
tent, just as if he were a spectator who had arrived late. A seat
would be saved for him, and near it would be an usher who was drilled
in the part he had to play.
As soon as Lizzie was loosed from her cage, up Joe would jump, to run
after the flapping animal, pretending to think it had escaped. Then
would follow his fall into the tank. It never failed to “bring down
the house,” especially when Jim Tracy would himself act as though he,
too, had been deceived by the trick.
For Jim’s part in the odd act was as before. He would rush over to
the tank and pretend to be vastly angry at the countryman. Then Joe
would reveal himself in his true character, and word would circulate
that he was one of the regular circus folk.
The crowds laughed at the clever way they had been deceived, but it
was good-natured laughing, and they rather liked it than otherwise.
And so Joe had injected the necessary “ginger” into the show, at
least for the time being.
“And when you put back the high-wire riding act, that will add to
it,” said Jim Tracy.
In due time Joe’s apparatus arrived, and was got ready to be set up
in the tent. It has been recorded elsewhere that Joe had a thin wire
cable anchored at each end in the ground, and raised up by two pairs
of “shears” set about three hundred feet apart. The lad rode up the
slanted wire at one end on a motor-cycle with grooved rims on the
wheels to fit the wire. On reaching the level stretch he shot across
that at good speed, and rode down the other side. And, while doing
this, the youth, with a revolver in each hand, would shoot glass
balls or toy balloons, shattering them with the two shots, for Joe
was an expert marksman.
This act, as it had done elsewhere when put on, thrilled the large
audiences, so that Joe really did more than his share in providing
the “ginger.”
“Everything’s going splendidly!” said Jim Tracy, about a week after
Joe had again put on his motor-cycle turn. “With that and with your
fall into the tank we’re drawing big crowds, Joe, my boy; so I’m
going to give you more money.”
“That’s good! I need it.”
“Still harping on your wings of steel?”
“Oh, yes, I’m going to have them sooner or later. I know my idea is
all right, and I’ve got a new man working on the machine now. He may
solve the difficulty.”
As Jim Tracy left Joe, Helen, who had heard part of what was said,
approached.
“Are you really still working on your queer flying machine, Joe?” she
asked.
“Yes, Helen, and I’m going to fly, too!”
“Oh, Joe, I wish you wouldn’t!” she exclaimed impulsively.
“Why not?” he asked, with a smile.
“Oh, suppose you should fall and be hurt--maybe killed--what would I
ever do, Joe?” and Helen blushed as she asked this.
“Would you care?” he asked softly.
“You--you know I would,” she whispered, and there was no doubt as to
her fondness for Joe Strong.
“I’m glad,” was the youth’s answer. “And I will be careful, Helen;
for I like you more than any girl I ever met.”
“Maybe you won’t say that when you meet Miss Tyndall,” returned Helen.
“Miss Tyndall! Who is she?” asked Joe.
“Oh, she’s a new performer who is coming to us. Mr. Sampson has
engaged her. He was telling me about her. It’s going to be another
new act.”
“What is it? Is it like yours? Is Miss Tyndall a bareback rider?”
“No, she has what is called a ‘happy family.’ You know--a dog, a cat,
a monkey, a kangaroo, and, I believe, some other animals. She has
them all in one cage, and she makes them do tricks. It’s quite novel,
I believe.”
“Sounds good,” Joe admitted. “But what makes you think I may be so
taken with Miss Tyndall, whom I have never seen?”
“She is very pretty, as one can tell by her picture, which Mr.
Sampson showed me.”
“I know somebody else who is pretty,” commented Joe.
“Don’t be silly,” Helen advised him, but, obviously, she was not
ill-pleased. “And she is said to be very attractive,” the girl went
on. “So I’m just warning you, Joe. Don’t look at her when you ought
to be steering your motor-cycle, or you may take a tumble from the
high wire.”
“Oh, I’ll look out!” Joe promised. “Anyway, my heart isn’t in my own
keeping any more, so there’s no further danger of my losing it. I’ve
lost it already.”
Helen blushed again.