CHAPTER V
A FIRE SENSATION
Joe Strong had to think quickly. Every acrobat, every person who does "stunts" in a circus, must; for something is always happening, or on the verge of taking place. And when Joe looked up and saw the rusted wire and noted the fraying strands, several thoughts shot through his mind at once.
"That rust spot wasn't there this morning when, I looked at the trapeze," he mused. "And it hasn't rained since. How did it get there?"
He thought of the too talkative Harry Loper, and an ugly suspicion associated itself with him. But Joe had no time for such thoughts then. What was vital for him to know was whether or not the thin wire cable would remain unbroken long enough for him to reach the maximum of his swing, and land on the platform. Or would he fall, spoiling the act and also endangering himself?
True he might land in the net in such a way as to come to no harm, as he had done many times, and as many performers before him had done. But the danger was that in a sudden and unexpected drop downward he might not be able to get his limbs in the proper landing position.
Joe Strong had nerve. If he had lacked it he would never have been so successful. And at once he decided on a courageous proceeding.
"I'll bring all my weight suddenly on that left hand cable," he mused, as he swung to and fro, from side to side of the big tent. "If it's going to break it will do so then. And I'll be ready for it. I'll then keep hold of the trapeze bar, which will be straight up and down instead of crosswise, and swing by that. The other cable seems all right." This was a fact which Joe ascertained by a quick inspection.
There was no time for further thought. As he swung, Joe suddenly shifted his weight, bringing it all on the frayed and strangely rusted cable. As he half expected, it gave way, and he dropped in an instant, but not far.
The watching crowd gasped. It looked like an accident. And it was, in a way, but Joe had purposely caused it. As the wire broke Joe held tightly to the wooden bar, which was now upright in his hands instead of being horizontal. And though it slipped through his fingers, perhaps for the width of his palm, at last he gripped it in a firm hold and kept on with his swing.
And then the applause broke forth, for the audience thought it all a part of the trick—they thought that Joe had purposely caused the cable to break to make the act more effective.
To and fro swung Joe, nearer and nearer to the second platform, and then, reaching the height of the long arc, he turned his body and stepped full and fair on the little square of velvet-covered boards.
With a lithe contortion, Joe squirmed to an upright position, recovering his balance with a great effort, for he had been put out in his calculations of distance, and then, turning, he bowed to the crowds, revolving on the platform to take in every one.
Again the applause broke forth, to be drowned in the boom and ruffle of the drums as the band began to play. There is little time in a circus, where act follows act so quickly, for long acknowledgments.
The other performers came into the rings or on to the raised platforms, and Joe descended by means of the rope ladder. Helen met him, and they walked toward the dressing rooms.
"That was a wonderful trick, Joe," she said. "But I didn't see you practice that drop."
"I didn't practice it," he remarked dryly. "I did it on the spur of the moment."
"Joe Strong! wasn't it dangerous?"
"Well, a little."
"What made you do it?"
"I couldn't help it."
"You couldn't help it? Joe—do you mean—?" She sensed that something was wrong, but walking around the circus arena, with performers coming and going, was not the place to speak of it. Joe saw that she understood.
"I'll tell you later," he said. "We have to get ready for the trick box and the vanishing lady stunt now."
"Oh, Joe! were you in much danger?" she asked in a low voice.
"Oh, not much," he answered, and he tried to speak lightly. Yet he did not like to think of that one moment when he saw the rusted and broken wire.
While Joe and Helen are preparing for the box act, which has been treated fully in the previous volume, the explanation of how the vanishing lady trick was accomplished will be given, though that, too, has been explained in an earlier volume.
A large newspaper is put on the stage and the chair set on the paper, thus, seemingly, precluding the possibility of a trap door being cut in the stage through which the lady in the chair might slip. The word "seemingly" is used with a due sense of what it means. The newspaper was not a perfect one. On one of its sides which was not exhibited to the audience, there was cut an opening, or trap, that exactly corresponded in size with a trap door on the stage. The paper, as explained in the previous book, is strengthened with cardboard, and the trap is a double one, being cut in the center, the flaps being easily moved either way.
The audience thinks it sees a perfect newspaper. But there is a square hole in it, but concealed as is a secret trap door.
When Joe laid the paper on the stage he placed it so that the square, double flap in it was exactly over the trap in the stage floor. He then drew the page of the paper that he had held out to the audience toward himself, exposing the trap for use, but because it was so carefully made, and the cut was so fine, it was not visible from the front.
Helen took her place in the chair, which, of course, was a trick one. It was fitted with a concealed rod and a cap, and it was over this cap, brought out at the proper moment, that Joe carefully placed the black veil, when he was pretending to mesmerize Helen. There was a cross rod, also concealed in the chair, and on either end of this, something like the epaulettes of a soldier, so that when these ends were under the veil and the cap was in place it looked as though some one sat in the chair, when, really, no one did.
Helen was in the chair at the start. But as soon as she was covered by the veil she began to get out The seat of the chair was hinged within its frame As Helen sat on it, and after she had been covered with the veil, she rested her weight on her hands, which were placed on the extreme outer edges of this seat frame. She pulled a catch which caused the seat to drop, and at the same time the trap beneath her, including the prepared newspaper, was opened by an attendant. The black veil all about the chair prevented the audience seeing this.
Helen lowered herself down through the dropped seat of the chair, through the trap, and under the stage. And while she was doing this it still looked as if she were in the chair, for the false cap and the extended cross rod made outlines as if of a human form beneath the black veil.
As soon as Helen was out of the chair and beneath the stage an attendant closed the newspaper and wooden floor traps. Joe then suddenly raised the veil, taking in its folds the false cap and the cross piece which had represented Helen's shoulders. They were thin and light—these pieces of trick apparatus—and no one suspected they were in the veil. The hinged seat of the chair snapped back in place by means of a spring, and when Joe stepped aside, holding the veil, there was the empty chair; and the newspaper, which he picked up, seemed to preclude the possibility of there having been a trap in the stage. But Joe was careful how he exhibited this paper to his audience.
And so it was that the lady "vanished."
"And now, Joe, tell me all about it!" demanded Helen, when the circus was over for the afternoon, and the box and vanishing tricks had been successfully performed. "What happened to your trapeze?"
"Some one spilled acid on one of the wire ropes, and it ate into the metal, corroding it and separating a number of the strands so that a little extra weight broke them," said Joe.
"Acid on the cable?" cried Helen. "How did you find out?"
"I just examined the wire. I knew it couldn't have rusted naturally in such a short time. There was a peculiar smell about the wire, and I know enough of chemistry to make a simple acid test! What kind of acid was used I don't know, but it was strong enough to eat the steel."
"Who could have put it on?"
"That I've got to find out!"
"Was it Harry Loper?"
"I taxed him with it, but he swears he knew nothing of it," said Joe. "I'm inclined to believe him, too. I charged him with drinking, and he could not deny that. But he said he met some old friends and they induced him to have a little convivial time with them. No, I don't believe he'd do it. He's weak and foolish, but he had no reason to try to injure me."
"Who would, Joe? Of course there's Bill Carfax, but he hasn't been seen near the circus of late."
"No, I don't believe it could have been Bill. I'll have to be on my guard."
"Do, Joe!" urged Helen. "Oh, I can't bear to think of it!"
"Don't then!" laughed Joe, trying to make light of it. "Let's go down town and I'll buy you some ice cream."
"But you're not going to give up trying to find out who put acid on the trapeze, are you?"
"No, indeed!" declared the young performer. "I have two problems on my hands now—that and trying to learn how too many persons came to the circus this afternoon," and he told Helen about the extra tickets.
"That's queer!" she exclaimed. "Some jinx bug must be after us!"
"Don't get superstitious!" warned Joe. "Now we'll forget our troubles. They may not amount to anything after all."
But, though he spoke lightly, Joe was worried, and he was not going to let Helen know that. They went into an ice-cream parlor and "relaxed," as Helen called it.
The two were on their way back to the circus lot, intending to go to supper and prepare for the evening entertainment, when there was a sudden alarm down the street, and, in an instant, the fire engines and other apparatus dashed past.
"A fire!" cried Joe. "Come on, Helen! It's just down the street!"
They could see smoke pouring from a small building and a crowd rushing toward it. Thither, also, the fire apparatus was dashing. Joe and Helen were among the early arrivals.
"What is it?" asked Joe of an officer. "I mean what sort of place is that?" and he pointed to the building, which was now obscured by smoke.
"Dime museum," was the answer. "Lot of fakes. I sent in the alarm. A fire-eater was trying some new stunt and he set the place ablaze, so the boss yelled to me. Come now, youse all have to git back!" and he motioned to the crowd, which was constantly increasing, to get beyond the fire lines.
CHAPTER VI
SOMETHING NEW
What with the clanging of the gongs on the engines and on the red runabouts that brought two battalion chiefs to the fire; the pall of smoke, with, here and there, the suggestion of a red blaze; the swaying excitement of the crowd; the yells of harassed policemen; the scene at the blaze of the dime museum was one long to be remembered by Joe Strong and Helen Morton—particularly in the light of what happened afterward.
"Joe, did you hear what he said?" asked Helen, as she moved back with the young acrobat in conformity with the officer's order.
"You mean that we've got to slide?"
"No, that a fire-eater started the blaze. Does he mean a professional 'fire bug,' as I have heard them called?"
"Oh, not at all!" exclaimed Joe. "A fire-eater is a chap who does such stunts in a museum, theater, or even in a circus. Sampson Brothers used to have one, I understand, from looking over the old books. But it wasn't much of an act. Golly, this is going to be some blaze!"
That was very evident from the increased smoke that rolled out and the crackle of fire that now could be heard above the puffing of the engines and the shouts of the mob.
"A regular tinder box!" muttered the officer who had told Joe the origin of the blaze. "Place ought to have been pulled down long ago. Git back there youse!" he yelled to some venturesome lads. "Want to git mushed up?"
The blaze was a big one, considerable damage was done, and several persons were injured. But quick work by an efficient department prevented the flames from spreading to the buildings on either side of the one where it had started.
Joe and Helen stayed long enough to see the menace gotten under control, and then they departed just as the ambulance rolled away with the last of the victims.
"That's the fire-eater they're taking to the hospital now," said the policeman who had first spoken to the young circus performers. "They took him into a drug store to wrap him in oil and cotton batting."
"Will he live?" asked Helen.
"Just a chance," was the answer. "Say, if I had to get my living eating fire I'd starve," confided the policeman. "It must be some stunt! I always thought it was a fake, but this fire burned real enough."
"Oh, it isn't all fake," said Joe, "though of course there's a trick about it."
"You seem to know," said the policeman, and he smiled at Joe and Helen. His chief troubles were about over with the departure of the ambulance and the knowledge that filtered through the crowd that the most of the excitement was over.
"Oh, I'm in the circus business," confessed Joe. "I never ate fire," he went on, "but—"
"Oh, I know you now!" cried the officer. "I was on duty out at the circus grounds this afternoon, and I went into the tent when you did that box act. Say, that's some stunt! Do they really pay ten thousand dollars to the fellow who tells how it's done?"
"Well, we've never paid out the money yet," said Joe, with a smile. "But it's there, waiting for some one to claim it."
"Then I'm coming to-night to watch you," said the officer, who appeared delighted that he had recognized one of the "profesh."
"Come along," replied Joe. "Here, wait a minute! There are a couple of passes. Come and bring a friend. If you tell how I do the trick you'll get the ten thousand. Only you'll have to post a hundred dollars as a forfeit to the Red Cross in case you don't guess right. That's included in the offer."
"Oh!" The officer did not seem quite so pleased. "Well, I'll come anyhow," he went on, accepting the passes Joe handed him. The policeman had allowed Joe and Helen to stay in an advantageous place where they could watch the fire.
"Where are they taking the man who did the dangerous trick that caused all the trouble?" asked Helen, as she prepared to walk on with Joe.
"To the City Hospital, Miss. He's a bad case, I understand."
"Poor fellow," murmured Helen. "Do you think we could go to see him, and do something for him, Joe?" she asked solicitously. "He's in almost the same line of business as ourselves."
"Well, I don't know," was the slow answer.
"I can fix it up if you want to see him—that is, if the doctors and nurses will let you," said the policeman. "I know the hospital superintendent. You just tell him that Casey sent you and it will be all right."
"Thanks; perhaps we will," said Joe.
There was a little time after supper before the performers had to go on with their acts, and Helen prevailed on Joe to take her to the hospital whither the injured fire-eater had been removed. They found him swathed in bandages, no objection being made to their seeing him after the magic name of "Casey" had been mentioned to the superintendent.
"We came in to see if you needed any help," said Joe to the pathetic figure in the bed. "We're in the same line of business, in a way."
"Are you a fire-eater?" slowly asked the man.
"No," Joe told him. "But I'm in the circus—Sampson Brothers'."
"Oh, yes, I've heard about it. A partner of mine was with 'em for years. Gascoyne was his name."
"That was before my time," said Joe. "But how are you getting on? Can we be of any help to you? We professionals must help one another."
"That's right. We get knocked often enough," was the reply. "Well, I'm doing as well as can be expected, the doctor says. And I'm not really in need of anything. The museum folks were pretty good to me. Thank you, just the same."
"How did it happen?" asked Helen.
"Oh, just my carelessness," said the man. "We get careless after playing with fire a bit. I put too much alcohol on the tow, and there was a draft from an open door, some draperies caught, and it was all going before I knew it. I tried to put it out—that's how I got burned."
"Then you really didn't eat fire?" asked Helen.
Joe and the man swathed in bandages looked at one another and a semblance of a wink passed between them.
"Nobody can eat fire, lady," said the museum performer. "It's all a trick, same as some your husband does in the circus."
Joe blushed almost as much as did Helen.
"We're not married yet, but we're going to be," explained Joe, smiling.
"Lucky guy!" murmured the man. "Well, as I was saying, it's all a trick," he went on. "Strong alum solution in your mouth, just a dash of alcohol to make a blaze that flares up but goes out quickly if you smother it right. You know the game," and he looked at Joe.
"Well, not exactly," was the reply. "I've read something of it. But, somehow, it never appealed to me."
"Oh, it makes a good act, friend!" said the man earnestly. "I've done a lot of museum and circus stunts, and this always goes big. There's no danger if you handle it right. I'll be more careful next time."
"You don't mean to say you'll go back to it, do you?" asked Helen.
"Sure, lady! I've got to earn my living! And this is the best thing I know. I'll be out in a week. I didn't swallow any, thank goodness! Oh, sure I'll go at it again."
Joe and Helen cheered the sufferer up as much as they could, and then departed. Joe privately left a bill of substantial denomination with the superintendent to be used for anything extra the patient might need.
On the way back to the circus, where they were soon to give their evening performance, Joe was unusually quiet.
"What's the matter?" asked Helen. "Are you thinking of that accident on the trapeze?"
"No," was the answer. "It's something different. I've got to get up a new act for the show. That trapeze act, even the way I had to do it this afternoon, isn't sensational enough. I've got to have something new, and I've about decided on it."
"What?" asked Helen.
"I'm going to become a fire-eater!" was the unexpected, reply.
CHAPTER VII
THE PAPER EXPERT
For a moment Helen Morton stared at Joe Strong as though not quite sure whether or not he was in his proper mind. Then, seeing plainly that he was in earnest, she seemed to shrink away from him, as he had noticed her shrink away, for a moment, from the burned man suffering there in the hospital.
"What's the matter, Helen?" asked Joe, trying to speak lightly. "Don't you want to see some more sensational acts in the show?"
"Yes, but not that kind," she answered with a shudder she could not conceal. "Oh, Joe, if you were to—" She could not go on. Her breast heaved painfully.
"Now look here, Helen!" he exclaimed with good-natured roughness, "that isn't any way to look at matters; especially when we both depend on sensations for making our living.
"You know, as well as I do, that in this business we have to take risks. That's what makes our acts go. You take a risk every time you perform with Rosebud. You might slip, the horse might slip, and you'd be hurt. Now is this new act I am thinking of perfor—"
"Yes, I may take risks, Joe!" interrupted Helen. "But they are perfectly natural risks, and I have more than an even chance. You might just as well say you take a risk walking along the street, and so you do. An elevated train might fall on you or an auto run up on the sidewalk. The risks I take in the act with Rosebud are only natural ones, and really shouldn't be counted. But if you start to become a fire-eater—Oh, Joe, think of that poor fellow in the hospital!"
"He didn't get that way from eating fire—or pretending to eat it—for the amusement of the public. He might just as easily have been burned the way he is by lighting the kitchen stove for his wife to get breakfast. His accident was entirely outside of his act, you might say. Why, I use lighted candles in some of my tricks. Now, if some one knocked over a candle, and it caused a fire on the stage and I was burned, would you want me to give up being a magician?"
"Oh, no, I suppose not," said Helen slowly. "But fire is so dangerous. And to think of putting it in your mouth! How can you do it, Joe? Oh, it can't be done!"
"Oh, there's a trick about it. I haven't mastered all the details yet, so as to give a smooth performance, but I can make an attempt at it."
"Joe Strong! do you mean to say you know how to eat fire?" demanded Helen, and now her eyes showed her astonishment.
"Well, not exactly eat it, though that is the term used. But I do know how to do it. I learned, in a rudimentary way, when I was with Professor Rosello—the first man who taught me sleight-of-hand. He had one fire-eating act, but it didn't amount to much. He told me the secret of it, such as it was.
"But if I put on that stunt I'm going to make it different. I'm going to dress it up, make it sensational so that it will be the talk of the country where circuses are exhibited."
"And won't you run any danger?" questioned the girl quickly.
"Oh, I suppose so; just as I do when I work on the high trapeze or ride my motor cycle along the high wire. But it's all in the day's work. And now let's talk about something pleasant—I mean let's get off the shop."
Helen sighed. She was plainly disturbed, but she did not want to burden Joe with her worries. She knew he must have calm nerves and an untroubled mind to do his various acts in the circus that night.
After supper and before the evening performance Joe made a careful examination of his trapeze apparatus. Beyond the place where the acid had eaten into the wire strands, causing them to become weakened so that they parted, the appliances did not appear to have been tampered with. Nor were there any clews which might show who had done the deed. That it could have happened by accident was out of the question. The acid could have gotten on the wire rope in one way only. Some one must have climbed up the rope ladder to the platform and applied the stuff.
"But who did it?" asked Jim Tracy, when Joe had told him of the discovery of the acid-eaten cable.
"Some enemy. Perhaps the same one who was responsible for our loss in tickets this afternoon," answered the young magician.
"Carfax?" asked the ringmaster.
"It might be, and yet he isn't the only man who's been discharged or who has a grudge against me. There was Gianni with whom I had a fight."
"You mean the Italian? Yes, he was an ugly customer. But I haven't heard of him for years. I don't believe he's even in this part of the country."
"And we haven't any reason to suppose that Carfax is, either, after his fiasco in trying to expose my Box of Mystery trick. But we've got to be on our guard."
"I should say so!" exclaimed the ringmaster. "And now about your trapeze act, Joe! Are you going to put it on again to-night?"
"Of course. It's billed."
"Then you'll have to hustle to rig up a new rope."
"I'm not going to put on a new rope," declared Joe. "The act went so well when I seemed about to fall, that I'm going to keep that feature in. I'll rig up a catch on the severed cable. At the proper time I'll snap it loose, seem to fall, swing by the dangling bar as I did before, and land on the platform that way. It will be more effective than if I did it in the regular way."
"But won't it be risky?"
Joe shrugged his shoulders.
"No more so than any trapeze act. Now that I'm ready for the sudden drop I'll be on my guard. No, I can work it all right. And now about these extra admissions? What are we going to do about them?"
"Well," said the ringmaster, "maybe we'd better talk to Moyne about them. If they ring an extra thousand persons in on us again to-night the thing will be getting serious."
The treasurer was called in consultation with Joe and Tracy and other circus officials, and it was decided to keep a special watch on the ticket wagon and the ticket takers that night.
Joe quickly made the change in his trapeze and tested it, finding that he could work it perfectly. Then he began to think of his new fire-eating act. He was determined to make that as great a success as was his now well advertised ten thousand dollar mystery box act.
The evening performance had not long been under way, and Joe had done his big swing successfully, when he was sought out by Mr. Moyne.
"The same thing has happened again," said the treasurer.
"You mean more people coming in than we have sold tickets for?"
"That's it."
"Well, where do the extra admissions come from? I mean where do the people get their admission slips from—the extra people?"
"That's what we can't find out," the treasurer aid. "As far as the ticket takers can tell only one kind of admission slip for the fifty cent seats is being handed them. But the number, as tallied by the automatic gates, does not jibe with the number of ordinary admissions sold at the ticket office. To-night there is a difference of about eight hundred and seventy-five."
"Do you mean," asked Joe, "that that number of persons came in on tickets that were never sold at the ticket wagon?"
"That's just what I mean. There is an extra source from which the ordinary admission tickets come. As I told you this afternoon, we are having no trouble with our reserved seats. There have been no duplicates there. But there is a duplication in the fifty cent seats, where one may take his pick as to where he wants to sit."
"Don't we have tickets on sale in some of the downtown stores?" Joe asked.
"Oh, yes, several of the stores sell tickets up to a certain hour. Then they send the balance up here for us to dispose of."
"How about their accounts? Have you had them gone over carefully?"
"They tally to a penny."
"How about the unsold tickets these agents send back to us? Isn't there a chance on the way up for some one to slip out some of the pasteboards, Mr. Moyne?"
"There is a chance, yes, but it hasn't been done. I have checked up the accounts of the stores, and there is the cash or the unsold tickets to balance every time. But somehow, and from some place, an extra number of the ordinary admission tickets are being sold, and we are not getting the money for them."
"It is queer," said Joe. "I have an idea that I want to try out the first chance I get. Save me a bunch of these ordinary admission tickets. Take them from the boxes at random and let me have them."
"I will," promised the treasurer. "There is nothing we can do to-night to stop the fraud, is there?" he asked. Mr. Moyne was a very conscientious treasurer. It disturbed him greatly to see the circus lose money.
"I don't see what we can do," said Joe. "If we start an inquiry it may cause a fight. Let it go. We'll have to charge it to profit and loss. And don't forget to let me have some of those tickets. I want to examine them."
Mr. Moyne promised to attend to the matter. Joe then had to go on in his Box of Mystery trick, and when this was finished, amid much applause, he caused Helen to "vanish" in the manner already described.
The circus made considerable money in this town, even with the bogus admissions, and as the weather was fine and as the show would exhibit the next day in a big city for a two days' stand, every one was in good humor. Staying over night in the same city where they exhibited during the day was always a rest for the performers. They got more sleep and were in better trim for work.
The last act was finished, the chariot races had taken place, and the audience was surging out. The animal tent had already been taken down and the animals themselves were being loaded on the railroad train.
As Joe, Helen, and the other performers started for their berths, to begin the trip to the next town, the "main top" began coming down. The circus was on the move.
Soon after breakfast the next morning, having seen that all his apparatus had safely arrived, Joe visited Mr. Moyne in the latter's office.
"Have you a bunch of tickets for me?" asked the young magician.
"Yes, here they are—several hundred picked at random from the boxes at the entrance. I can't see anything wrong. If you're looking for counterfeit tickets I don't believe you'll find them," added Mr. Moyne.
"I don't know that I am looking for counterfeits," said Joe. "That may be the explanation, or it may be there is a leak somewhere in the ticket wagon."
"I'm almost sure there isn't," declared the treasurer. "But of course no one is infallible. I hope you get to the bottom of the mystery."
"I hope so myself," replied Joe, with a smile, as he put the tickets in a valise.
A little later he was on his way downtown. He had several hours before he would have to go "on," as he did not take part in the parade, and he had several matters to attend to.
Joe made his way toward a large office building, carrying the valise with the circus tickets. A little later he might have been seen entering an office, the door of which bore the name of "Herbert Waldon, Consulting Chemist."
"Mr. Strong," said Joe to the boy who came forward to inquire his errand. "Mr. Waldon is expecting me, I believe."
"Oh, yes," said the boy. "You're to come right in."
Joe was ushered into a room which was filled with strange appliances, from test tubes and retorts to electrical furnaces and X-ray apparatus. A little man in a rather soiled linen coat came forward, smiling.
"I won't shake hands with you, Mr. Strong," he said, "for I've been dabbling in some vile-smelling stuff. But if you wait until I wash I'll be right with you."
"All right," assented Joe. And then, as he caught sight of what seemed to be a number of canceled bank checks on a table, he smilingly asked: "Have you been paying your income tax?"
"Oh, no," answered the chemist with a laugh. "Those are just some samples of paper sent in for me to test. An inventor is trying to get up an acid-proof ink. I'm a sort of paper expert, among my other chemical activities, and I'm putting these samples through a series of tests. But you'll not be interested in them."
"I don't know but what I shall be," returned Joe, with sudden energy. "Since you are a paper expert I may be able to set you another task besides that of showing me the latest thing in fire-resisting liquids. Yes, I may want your services in both lines."
"Well, I'm here to do business," said Mr. Waldon, smiling.
CHAPTER VIII
JOE EATS FIRE
The chemist led the way into a little office. This opened off from the room in which was the apparatus, and where, as Joe had become more and more keenly aware, there was a most unpleasant odor.
"I'll open the window, close the laboratory door, and you won't notice it in a little while," said Mr. Waldon, as he observed Joe's nose twitching. "I'm so used to it I don't mind, but you, coming in from the fresh air—"
"It isn't exactly perfume," interrupted Joe, with a laugh. "But don't be uneasy on my account. I can stand it."
However, he was glad when the fresh air came in through the window. The chemist washed his hands and then sat down at a desk, inviting Joe to draw up his chair.
"Now, what can I do for you?" asked Mr. Waldon. "Is it fire or paper?"
"Well, since I know pretty well what I want to ask you in the matter of fire," replied Joe, "and since I've got a puzzling paper problem here, suppose we tackle the hardest first, and come to the known, and easier, trick later."
"Just as you say," assented Mr. Waldon. "What's your paper problem?"
Joe's answer was to take from the valise several hundreds of the circus tickets. They were the kind sold for fifty cents, or perhaps more in these days of the war tax. They entitle the holder to a seat on what, at a baseball game, would be called the "bleachers." In other words they were not reserved-seat coupons.
However, these tickets were not the one-time blue or red pieces of stiff pasteboard, bearing the name of the circus and the words "ADMIT ONE," which were formerly sold at the gilded wagon. These were handed in at the main entrance, and the tickets were used over and over again. Sometimes the blue ones sold for fifty cents, and a kind selling for seventy-five cents entitled the purchaser to a seat with a folding back to it, though it was not reserved.
But Joe had instituted some changes when he became one of the circus proprietors, and one was in the matter of the general admission tickets. He had them printed on a thin but tough quality of paper, and each ticket was numbered. In this way it needed but a glance at the last ticket in the rack and a look at the memorandum of the last number previously sold at the former performance, to tell exactly how many general admissions had been disposed of.
These numbered tickets were not used over again, but were destroyed after the day's accounts had been made up. At first Joe and some others of the officials had had an idea that the man who was charged with the work of destroying the tickets, instead of doing so, had kept some out and sold them at a reduced price. But an investigation proved that this was not the case.
"Some one is ringing in extra tickets on us," stated Joe to the chemist. "We want to find out who it is and how the trick is worked. So far, we haven't been able to find this out. As a matter of fact, we don't know whether there are bogus tickets in our boxes or not. We haven't been able to detect two kinds. They all seem the same."
"Some numbers must be duplicated," said Mr. Waldon, as he picked up a handful of the slips Joe had brought. "That's very obvious. The numbers must be duplicated in some instances."
"Yes, we have discovered that," returned Joe. "But the queer part is, taking even two tickets with the same number, we don't know which was sold at our ticket wagon and which is the bogus one. Here's a case in point."
He picked up two of the coupons. As far as eye or touch could tell they were identical, and they bore the same red number, one up in the hundred thousands.
"Now," continued Joe, "can you tell which of these two is the official circus ticket and which is the bogus one?"
The chemist thought for a moment.
"Have you a ticket—say one issued some time ago—which you are positive is genuine?" he asked.
"I'm ready for you there," answered Joe. "Here's a coupon that happened to escape destruction. It was one sold several weeks ago at our ticket wagon, before we noticed this trouble. I bought the ticket myself, so I know. I happened to be passing the wagon, and a boy was trying to reach up to buy a fifty cent seat. He wasn't quite tall enough, so I reached for him.
"Then, when I looked at him, I saw that fifty cents meant a lot to him. I gave him back his half dollar out of my own pocket, and passed him in to a reserved seat. But I forgot to turn the ticket in to the wagon, and it's been in my pocket ever since. Now I'm glad I saved it, for it will serve as a tester."
"Yes," admitted the chemist, "it will. It's a good thing you have this. But, Mr. Strong, this is going to take some time. I'll have to compare all these tickets with the admittedly genuine one, and I'll have to make some intricate tests."
"Well, I hoped you might be able to tell me right off the reel which of these coupons were good and which bad," said Joe. "But I can appreciate that it isn't easy. We certainly have been puzzled. So I'll leave them with you, and you can write to me when you have any results. I'll leave you a list of the towns where we'll be showing for the next two weeks. And now suppose we get at the fire-eating business."
"All right," was the reply of the chemist. "But with the understanding that you do all the eating. I haven't any appetite that way myself."
They both laughed, and then, for some hours, Joe Strong was closeted with the chemist.
When Joe emerged from the office of Mr. Waldon there was a look of satisfaction on the face of the young magician.
"I think I can make quite an act, after what you've told me," he said. "As soon as I get it perfected I'll send you word and you can come to see me."
"I will, if you aren't too far away," promised the chemist.
That night, following the closing of the performance, Joe invited Helen, Jim Tracy, and a few of his more intimate friends and associates into his private dressing tent.
"I have the nucleus of a new act," he said, when they were seated in chairs before a small table, on which were several pieces of apparatus. "Just give me your opinion of this."
Joe lighted a candle, picked up on a fork what seemed to be a piece of bread, and touched it to the candle flame. In an instant the object that was on the fork burst into a blaze, and, before the eyes of his friends, Joe calmly put the flaming portion into his mouth.
He closed his lips, seemed to be chewing something, opened his mouth, and showed it empty.
"A little light lunch!" he remarked, but his smile faded as Helen screamed in horror.
CHAPTER IX
THE CHEMIST'S LETTER
"Oh, Joe, you'll surely burn yourself!" exclaimed the startled bareback rider.
"Did you get burned?" questioned Mrs. Watson.
"Some trick!" declared the snake charmer.
For the moment there was some excitement, for this was a new act for the circus people.
Helen soon recovered her customary composure, and then she explained the cause of her excitement and the startled cry she had given. She had, of course, expected some trick with fire when Joe had summoned her and the others to his own private part of the dressing tents. But she had not expected to see him actually put the blazing material in his mouth.
"I thought there was some sleight-of-hand performance about it," she said. "I had an idea that you only pretended to put the blazing stuff in your mouth, Joe. And when I saw it I was afraid you'd breathe in the flames and—and—"
She did not need to go on, they all understood what she meant, for every one in the circus knew that Helen and Joe were engaged.
"I once saw a little boy burned at a bonfire at which he was playing," went on Helen. "He died. Since then the sight of fire near a human being has always a bad effect on me. But I suppose I can get over it, if I know there is no danger," she said with a slight smile at Joe.
"Well, I can assure you there isn't the slightest danger," he declared. "If there was, I should be the first to give it up. I am as fond of living as any one."
"You don't show it, young man, in some of the tricks you do," commented Mrs. Watson, with the freedom befitting a "circus mother," and the privilege of an old friend. "You must remember that you don't live only for yourself," and she looked significantly at Helen.
"Oh, I'll be careful!" promised Joe. "And now I'll do the trick again for you, and let you see that it's absolutely harmless. Any of you could do it—if you knew how."
"Excuse me!" exclaimed Jim Tracy. "Not for mine!"
However they all watched Joe eagerly and interestedly, even Helen. He did not seem to make any unusual preparations. He merely took a drink of what seemed to be water. Then he ignited something in the flame of the candle and placed the burning stuff in his mouth, seeming to chew it with gusto.
"Oh!" exclaimed Helen. But beyond that and a momentary placing of one hand over her heart, she did not give way to emotion. Then, as Joe did the fire-eating trick again, Helen forced herself to watch him closely. As he had said, he took no harm from the act.
"Tell us how you do it," begged Bill Watson. "When I get over being funny—or getting audiences to think I am—I may want to live on something hot. How do you work it?"
"Well," said Joe, "if it's all the same to you, I'd rather not tell. It isn't that I'm afraid of any of my friends giving the trick away, and so spoiling the mystery of it for the crowds. It's just as it was in my box act. If any of you are asked how I do this fire trick you can truly say you don't know, for none of you will know by my telling, not even Helen, though she is in on the box secret. I'll only say that I protect my face and mouth, as well as hands, in a certain way, and that I do, actually, put the blazing material into my mouth. I am not burned. So if any one asks you about the act you may tell them that much with absolute truth. Now the question is—how is it going to go with the audiences? We need something—or, at least, I do—to create a sensation. Will this answer?"
"I should say so!" exclaimed Jim Tracy. "That ought to go big when it's dressed up."
"Oh, this is only the ground work," said Joe. "I'm going to elaborate this fire act and make it the sensation of the season. I've only begun on it. I got from a chemist the materials I want with which to protect myself, and I have shown, to my own and your satisfaction, that I can eat fire without getting harmed. So far all is well. Now I'm going to work the act up into something really worth while."
"But you'll still be careful, won't you, Joe?" asked Helen.
"Indeed I will," he assured her.
"Do the trick once more, Joe," suggested Bill Watson. "I'm coming as close as you'll let me, and I want to criticize it from the standpoint of a man in the audience."
"That's what I'm after," said Joe. "If there are any flaws in the act, now is the time to find it out."
Once more he set the material ablaze and put it into his mouth. Bill Watson watched closely, and, at the end, the old clown shook his head.
"I saw you actually put the fire in your mouth," he testified. "No one can do more than that. It takes nerve!"
Of course, no one can actually swallow fire and live. The slightest breath of flame on the lungs or on the mucous membrane of the throat and passages is fatal. So when the terms "fire-eating" or "fire-eater" are used it will be in the sense of its being a theatrical act. There is a trick about it, and the trick is this:
In the first place, the flame itself is produced by blazing alcohol. This produces a blaze, and a hot one, too, but there is no smoke. In other words, the combustion is almost perfect, there being no residue of carbon to remain hot after the actual flame is extinguished.
And now as to the actual putting into one's mouth something that is blazing hot: It all depends on a very simple principle.
If the hand be thoroughly wet in water it may be safely thrust for a fraction of a second into a flaming gas jet. But mark this—for the fraction of a second only. The water forms a protecting film for the skin, and before it is evaporated the hand must be taken out of danger. In other words, there is needed an appreciable time for the fire to beat the skin to the burning point.
This immunity from burns, to which the professional fire-eaters owe their success, comes from this film of moisture on their skin. They do not always use water—in fact, this is only serviceable for a momentary contact with flame, and, at that, on the hands or face. In case a longer contact is desired, a fire-resisting chemical liquid is used.
It is about the contact of flame with the tender mucous membrane surfaces of the mouth and throat that Joe, as a fire-eater, was most concerned.
In the first place, there is a constant film of the secretion called saliva always flowing in the mouth. It comes from glands in the throat and mouth, and is very necessary to good digestion.
Now, for a very brief period this saliva, which is just the same as a film of water on the hand, resists the fire. But professional fire-eaters do not depend on saliva alone. They use a chemical solution, and this is what Joe did when he drank something from a glass.
What that chemical solution was, Joe kept as a closely guarded professional secret. He feared, too, that some boy might make it, rinse his mouth out with it, and then, getting an audience of his chums together, might try to eat some blazing coals. He might, and very likely would, be severely burned, and his parents or those in charge of him would blame Joe for allowing such dangerous information to leak out.
So, though he guarded all his secrets of magic, he was particularly careful to keep this one to himself.
But Joe protected his mouth and throat with a fire-resisting liquid, the formula for which was given him by the chemist to whom he submitted the circus tickets.
The success of Joe and others of his kind depends also in this on a well known natural law. It is that there can be no combustion in the ordinary sense where there is no oxygen. As a candle will surely go out if enclosed in an air-tight receptacle—that is, it will go out as soon as it has burned up all the oxygen—just so surely will flame of any kind go out when a person closes his mouth on it. And as there is scarcely any air in the closed mouth—all of it going down the bronchial tubes into the lungs—it follows that the flame dies out almost instantly. That fact being considered, and the mouth and throat having been previously treated with the secret chemical, there is really not so much danger as appears.
As a matter of fact, a person inadvertently swallowing hot tea or coffee will burn or scald his mouth or tongue much more painfully than will a professional fire-eater. Most people know how painful a burned tongue is.
Joe told something of the history of fire-eating "champions" to his audience of friends, for it appeared that he had been reading up on the subject and was well informed. Then he announced that the private rehearsal was over.
"But I'm going to work this fire-eating up into something that will cause a sensation," he said. And he made good his promise.
It was about a week after this, and the circus had been traveling about, playing to good business, when Joe received a letter. In the upper left-hand corner was the imprint of Herbert Waldon, Chemist.
"I hope he has some news about the circus tickets!" exclaimed Joe. For the show had been losing money steadily by means of the bogus coupons; not as much as at first, but enough to make it necessary to discover the fraud. And, so far, Mr. Moyne had not been successful.
"Perhaps this explains the mystery," mused Joe as he opened the letter.