s."
"Thanks," said Joe. "I wouldn't want to give up the bar and rope work,
either. I guess I'll wait until next season to give Lizzie a larger
part in the act."
Joe did not want to give up his trapeze work for several reasons, one
being that it kept him in trim for a certain hazy plan he had in mind.
Joe was a youth on whom great heights made no impression. He felt fully
as safe on the dizzy height of some church steeple as he did on the
ground.
There are some persons who have a morbid fear of looking down from any
great height, and who always refuse to ascend a high place or to look
down from the top of a tall building.
There is another class of people who are really made temporarily insane
when looking from a great height and have an almost irresistible
inclination to throw themselves down. There is a complicated medical
term which is applied to this disease, for a disease it is. Such
persons should never look down from great heights.
But, fortunately, Joe was not in this class. He did not in the least
mind climbing high up into the air, with even a frail support. And it
was his trapeze work that kept him in good trim for this sort of
daring, so Joe did not want to give it up.
The tank act, with Lizzie, the seal, in it, was made one of the big
features of the circus. Jim Tracy had new bills printed showing Joe and
Lizzie apparently having a fine time under water. The posters were
large and in gay colors, and Joe's name was featured, to the envy of
many others in the circus.
Not a few were the sneers cast at Joe on more than one occasion, when
he declined to take part in some jollification, and remarks were made
about his being a miser and a "tight-wad."
But Joe did not seem to care. He drew his salary regularly, and as he
was not known to gamble or to have other noticeably bad habits, there
was considerable speculation as to what he did with his money.
"He doesn't send any to his folks, for he hasn't any folks," said Tonzo
Lascalla. "He told me so. His foster father is well off, and doesn't
need any cash from Joe, and he hasn't any other relatives, except maybe
some in England he never heard of."
"Maybe he's saving to hire a lawyer to get his English fortune for
him," suggested Sid Lascalla.
"Maybe," agreed his partner.
But, as a matter of fact, Joe had about given up hope of ever hearing
anything favorable from England. His inquiries had come to naught,
though Bill Watson insisted that Jan
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