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