CHAPTER I
"GOOD-BYE!"
"Come on, Ben, I want to introduce you to Lizzie."
"Lizzie? I thought you said her name was Helen."
"Oh, this is a different sort of lady. Of course there's a Helen too. Come on, right over this way."
Two boys, or, rather, two youths, walked arm in arm across a lot whereon stood several tents, one large and the others smaller. From one came the loud trumpetings of elephants and an occasional roar of a lion. In another tent scores of horses could be seen under the raised sides, eating hay from canvas mangers. From still a third tent came appetizing odors of food.
The scene was a circus, and it was as lively and animated a scene as such always are, with men hurrying to and fro getting the animals and wagons ready for the street parade and arranging for the two performances that were to follow.
"Well, Ben, do you feel like coming back?" asked Joe Strong, the taller of the two lads.
"Feel like coming back? I should say I do, Joe! But if it hadn't been for you I never should have been able to come back."
"You might, Ben."
"No, I'm sure I shouldn't. I'd never have had the money to pay for the operation, and that's what saved me from becoming deaf and dumb, Joe."
"Well, I'm glad I was able to have it done for you, Ben. Are you sure you'll be able to take up the tank work again, and stay under water as long as you used to?"
"The doctor says he doesn't see any reason why I can't."
As the two lads walked on toward the dressing tent, where the men and women performers attired themselves in the gay suits they appeared in at the public performances, peculiar sounds came from the canvas house. The noise was, as nearly as it can be shown in print, like a series of hoarse barkings, expressed by:
Hook! Hook! Hook! Ook! Ook!
"What in the world is that?" asked Benny Turton, who, as he walked beside Joe Strong, showed somewhat the effects of a recent illness and operation.
"That's Lizzie, saying good-morning," explained Joe.
"Well, I can't say that she has a very cheerful voice," returned Ben with a smile.
"Still you'll find Lizzie a very cheerful and companionable young lady," went on Joe, laughing.
"But I can't get over thinking it was a Helen I was to meet," said Ben. "You know the Helen I mean—the one billed as Mademoiselle Mortonti—she was with the show when I was, and I used to think you were quite gone on her. She hasn't left, has she?"
"Oh, no," Joe answered. "Miss Morton is still with Sampson Brothers' Show. But it's Lizzie I want you to meet now. You'll have to perform with her in the tank, you know, if you take up the work I'm going to leave."
"Is she a good swimmer?" asked Ben.
"One of the best in the world. She can beat you and me all to pieces."
"I'll have to practise up," said Ben, who was quite curious.
"You can never equal Lizzie," retorted Joe. "Come on now, and you'll meet her in proper style. You might give her this, for it will be a sure way of getting in her good graces."
As he spoke Joe Strong, who had entered the dressing tent, picked up from a pail near the entrance a dead fish, and slipped it into Ben's hand.
"Here! What—what in the world do you mean?" exclaimed Ben, looking at the fish he had unwittingly taken.
"It's for Lizzie," explained Joe.
"But—but it isn't cooked."
"I know. Lizzie likes her fish raw!" Joe had hard work not to laugh at the queer look on Ben's face.
"You've sure got me going," laughed Ben. "I give up. What's it all about?"
"This," answered Joe, moving over toward a heavy wooden box. "Ben Turton, allow me to present you to Lizzie, one of the best trained sea-lions in captivity," and as Joe turned back the cover of the crate a sea-lion wiggled her way out, and, flopping to a position in front of Joe, raised up her sleek head and "Hooked!" in loud tones.
"Yes, Lizzie, you shall have it," Joe went on. "Give her the fish, Ben. That's what she is begging for."
Hardly knowing what he was doing, Ben Turton held out the fish, which the sea-lion gently took from his hand. There was a flash of small, white and very sharp teeth and—the fish disappeared.
"Whew!" whistled Ben. "So your Lizzie is a seal, is she? And that's how she eats fish! I shouldn't like to have her take a bite out of me."
"No danger," said Joe. "She's as gentle as a baby. Look," and he fearlessly placed his hand in the mouth of the sea-lion, or seal, as most persons wrongly call the sea-lion. "Lizzie and I have been working together in the tank for some time now," he added.
"Do you mean that you actually swim in the tank with her?" asked Ben, somewhat incredulously.
"That's what I do. And that's what has made the act so popular. I have made a lot of changes since I temporarily took your place, Ben, and I didn't tell you about all of them, for I wanted to surprise you. The seal is one of the surprises."
"I should say it is!" cried Ben. "A big surprise!"
"Well, I must get ready for my farewell appearance," Joe went on. "Come on in while I dress, and you can be planning for something new yourself. You're going to take the work up where I leave off, you know."
"Yes, I suppose so, but I didn't figure on acting with a seal, Joe."
"Oh, you'll soon get used to that. Lizzie's a great tank actress. She just loves to do tricks. I'll show you, and later on when the afternoon performance is over you can put on the rubber suit yourself and get in the tank with her. You'll like Lizzie."
"Well, perhaps I shall," said Ben, but he was rather dubious.
In the dressing tent Joe Strong donned a queer rubber suit, red in color, and made to resemble the scales of a fish. In fact Joe was known as the "boy fish" just as Ben, before he had been taken ill, was billed as the "human fish."
"It seems like old times to be here again," remarked Ben, as several of the circus men and women came in to see him, while Joe was getting ready for his act.
"I'm glad it does," remarked the boy fish. "And I'm glad you can take your old place back. It's a good act, and I did hate to leave the circus without it. But I'm going to say good-bye to-day, and you can fill my place."
"What are you going to do, Joe?"
"Well, you know I told you I had become quite an expert on the motor-cycle."
"Yes, you mentioned it. But so much has happened lately, and in such a short time, that I had almost forgotten it."
"I don't blame you. Well, I have an idea I can work up an act of my own on the gasoline bicycle that will beat anything I ever did in the tank. So I'm going to try."
"Are you going to leave the circus?"
"Yes. I have an idea I can make more money starring by myself. It will be easier for me, too, as I can map out my own route, and if there comes a day when I don't feel like showing I won't have to. I don't mind hard work, but with a circus the show has to go on, and one has to go on with it whether one wants to or not. So I'm going to cut loose."
"Well, I wish you all success, Joe. I'm glad to have my old act back in the circus."
By this time the parade was over and the afternoon performance would soon begin. Joe took Ben into the "main top," or the big tent where the main show would be given.
"Hello!" exclaimed Ben, as he saw a big glass tank filled with water, in which goldfish were swimming about. "You've made a change here, too!"
"Yes, it's a little showier, I think. Do you like it?"
"I sure do. Now I'm going to watch you act. I'll have to do as nearly like you as I can."
With a blare of trumpets the grand entry started and then, when the camels, the elephants and the horses with their gaily dressed riders had filed out of the big tent, the individual and team acts began.
Joe Strong, the boy fish, went into the big tank of water and swam about, doing fancy strokes and also going through a number of sleight-of-hand tricks, including some with a pack of celluloid cards. All the tricks were performed under water, Joe, of course, holding his breath.
As a climax Joe performed with the trained seal, Lizzie, who was released from her crate by an attendant when Joe gave the signal. Lizzie flapped her way up a flight of steps leading to the top of the tank, and dived in with scarcely a ripple.
"Say! won't she eat up those goldfish?" asked Ben of Helen Morton, who stood near him watching Joe. Helen had finished some trick and fancy riding on her trained horse, Rosebud.
"No, Lizzie can't get the fish," Helen explained. "The tank has double sides, you see, and the fish swim in between the inner and outer sheets of glass, so the seal can't get at them. That was my idea, Ben."
"It's a good one, all right."
Joe ate bananas under water, while Lizzie consumed fish. Then the two went through several other tricks, the act ending when Joe had remained under water, without coming up to breathe, for four minutes and a half. This was not his record, but it was a long time, and the big crowd applauded vigorously when Jim Tracy, the ring-master, announced the time.
"I don't believe I'll be able to do that," said Ben, with a dubious shake of his head.
"Oh, yes you will, in time," said Helen. "You'll get back to your old form after a little practice. We're all glad to have you back with us."
"And I guess you'll be sorry to see Joe leave," suggested Ben.
"Indeed we shall!" cried Helen, and she spoke with such warmth that Ben looked at her curiously, while Helen blushed and turned away her head.
"Well, what do you think of the act, Ben?" asked Joe, when the main performance was over.
"It's great! You've improved it a hundred per cent. over my tank act. I only hope I can keep it up to the mark."
"Oh, you can, Ben. Do you want to try it now?"
"I think I'd better have a little practice, yes. Then I'll sort of get used to Lizzie."
"Oh, the seal isn't hard to act with. Come on."
A little later Ben Turton was again practising his former act as the "human fish," and, to his delight, he found that his recent illness and operation had not incapacitated him from doing underwater work.
He could not remain under as long as Joe had, though, but this would come with practice. Lizzie, the trained seal, performed equally well with either Joe or Ben, so that part of the problem was solved.
"And there's no reason why Ben can't go on with the performance to-night," said Joe to Jim Tracy, the ring-master and one of the owners of the Sampson Brothers' Circus. "That will let me get an early start."
"Just as you say, Joe," replied Jim Tracy. "You seem glad to leave us."
"Not at all. It's only that as long as I'm going to start out on my own hook, the sooner I begin the better. No, I'm sorry to go, for I have a lot of friends here."
Joe gave Benny instructions about caring for the seal and the goldfish when the circus moved on, and also left with the "human fish" some of the simpler tricks which Benny, in time, could learn to do. Then Joe got ready his motor-cycle. He had a new idea in regard to using that machine in some daring trick work, and he wanted to put his plans into execution. He intended to ride over to see a certain man in Hertford, a town about twenty-five miles from the place where the circus was then showing, and he planned to reach his destination that evening, and stay all night.
"And now are you really going to say good-bye, Joe?" asked Ben, as the former boy fish came up with his motor-cycle.
"Yes, I'll be getting along now. You've got everything down as fine as I can tell you, and you'll be able to start right in to-night. But I sort of hate to go, now the time has come," and there was a suspicion of tears in the lad's eyes.
"Come and see me once in a while," urged Ben. "I never can thank you enough for all you have done for me. I shan't forget it."
"Oh, yes, I'll see you some time," Joe promised. "Perhaps I'll be showing in the same town some day where the circus is billed."
He bade farewell to his many friends and acquaintances in the show, and, last of all, he shook hands with Helen Morton.
"Good-bye, Joe," she said, and her eyes were not altogether dry. "Let us hear from you now and then."
"I surely will!" Joe said with energy. "I'll write often."
"So will I," returned the girl in a low voice. "And, Joe, don't—don't take too many risks, will you?"
"No," he answered.
He walked slowly away from her, mounted the machine, and, waving his cap to the little crowd of circus folk gathered near the big tent, rode off down the road.
"Good-bye!" called his friends after him. "Good luck and good-bye!"
"Good-bye!" answered Joe.