"Yes, I know, but there was poor--Oh, well, I won't talk about it! Good
luck!" and she hurried on, for it was time for her act--the whistle of
the ringmaster having blown.

Joe looked after the girl he loved. He smiled, and then a rather serious
look settled over his face. Like a flash there had come to him the
memory of the too loquacious Harry Loper, who had fitted up his aerial
apparatus.

"There can be nothing wrong with that," mused Joe. "I went over every
inch of it. I guess Helen is just nervous. Well, there goes my cue!"

He hurried toward the entrance, and then he began to ponder over the
curious fact of there being a thousand persons too many at the
performance.

"We'll have to straighten out that ticket tangle after the show," mused
Joe. "It's likely to get serious. I wonder--" he went on, struck by a
new thought. "I wonder if--Oh, no! It couldn't be! He hasn't been around
in a long while."

Out into the tent, filled with a record-breaking crowd, went Joe to the
place where his high trapeze was waiting for him. The band was playing
lively airs, on one platform some trained seals were juggling big balls
of colored rubber, and on another a bear was going about on roller
skates. In one end ring Helen was performing with Rosebud, while in
another a troupe of Japanese acrobats were doing wonderful things with
their supple bodies.