w, Helen?"

"I timed him--I held the watch on him, as you call it."

"That's what she did," confirmed Joe.

He then told, Helen adding her share to the story, how one hot day,
being warm from exercises in the circus tent, he had put on a bathing
suit, and gone into Benny's glass water-filled tank to cool off. While
there Joe, who was an adept in the water, as are many boys who live in
the country near a river, decided to test himself for under-water
endurance. He filled his lungs with air and went under.

"And he stayed more than three minutes," testified Helen.

"Well, if you can do that, maybe we can pull off the act yet," agreed
the ring-master, with a sigh of relief.

There was a hasty consultation. By this time the ambulance had arrived
and Benny was put in it to be taken to the hospital. The physician
promised to give the boy every attention, and to let the circus
management know at once how he was getting along.

"Just what he is suffering, from, I can't say," the doctor stated, "but
it is something serious, I fear. It was something that made him
incapable of helping himself or calling for help."

"All right, Joe," said the ring-master, when it was certain Benny could
not finish his act. "You'd better get ready to go into the tank. Can
you wear Benny's suit?"

"I guess so, but it will be a pretty tight fit. It's wet, too, and it
isn't going to be easy to get into it."

The green, scaly, fish suit had been taken off Benny before he was put
into the ambulance.

Joe found he could squeeze into the suit. It was of rubber, and
stretched some.

"I'll be ready in a few minutes," he told the ring-master. "You go out
and make whatever announcement you please. Sort of tone it down for
me, for I don't know that I can please the public on such short notice,
particularly as I haven't practised any of Ben's tricks."

"Can't you do some of your own?" asked Helen, as she was leaving the
tent, having come back to see how Joe looked in the fish suit. "I mean
some of those you used to do with Professor Rosello?"

"That's so--I might," said Joe reflectively. "I've got a box of
apparatus in my trunk."

"I'll help you get it out," offered the pretty little trick rider.

"Thanks," murmured Joe.

Jim Tracy hurried out to the main tent, where he knew the crowd would
be waiting for the rest of the tank act. The ring-master signaled to
the band that he was going to say something.

The music stopped.

"Ladies and ge