pected.

"Can I do it?" thought Joe. The hand was within ten seconds of the
four-minute mark. Joe, who had opened his eyes for a brief glance at
the clock, shut them again. His heart was beating like a hammer inside
his chest, trying to make up for the lack of oxygenated blood.

To Joe it seemed as if fifteen seconds had passed, He gave a swift
glance at the clock.

"Only six," he thought. "I'm afraid I can't do it."

To make a complete four minutes he must stay under water four seconds
more, and seconds, now, were like hours to him.

There was a ringing in his ears. His head throbbed painfully, he began
to yawn and stretch again, as though awakening from a sleep. He looked
up and saw Jim Tracy peering anxiously down into the tank. The
ring-master realized that this was longer than Joe had ever stayed
under water before, and he thought perhaps something had gone wrong, as
it had in the case of Benny. The ring-master was calling off the half
minutes to the crowd, in which many were holding watches.

A few had tried to imitate Joe's feat, but had given it up as a
hopeless task.

"The boy fish has now been under water, without breathing, four
minutes, ladies and gentlemen!'" cried the ring-master. "He has beaten
his own record!"

It was indeed true. But still Joe did not come up. He was fighting for
time now--fighting for fractions of a second. He felt as if he would
burst, but he did not come up. He saw, by his clock, that he had stayed
under four minutes. A second passed--two--three--and still Joe was
under water. Then he could not stand it longer. He had come close to
the world's second best record at that.

Four seconds--five--and at the last tick of the five seconds over the
four minutes, Joe shot up to the surface. He tried not to show his
exhaustion as he climbed, dripping wet, out on to the platform and
bowed to the plaudits of the enthusiastic crowd, but it was hard work
for Joe to keep up. He did it, however.

"Good work, old man!" cried the ring-master as he helped put the bath
robe about Joe. "Great work! How'd you do it?"

"Oh--I--I just did it!" panted Joe, breathing in deeply of the
life-giving air.

"You didn't tell me you were going to pull off a stunt like that."

"I--I didn't know, myself, whether or not I could do it," said Joe, as
he started for his dressing room. "And I didn't want a failure."

"Good boy!" said Jim. "I guess I didn't make any mistake raising your
salary, Joe!"

"If