ith gusto.

"Oh!" exclaimed Helen. But beyond that and a momentary placing of one
hand over her heart, she did not give way to emotion. Then, as Joe did
the fire-eating trick again, Helen forced herself to watch him closely.
As he had said, he took no harm from the act.

"Tell us how you do it," begged Bill Watson. "When I get over being
funny--or getting audiences to think I am--I may want to live on
something hot. How do you work it?"

"Well," said Joe, "if it's all the same to you, I'd rather not tell. It
isn't that I'm afraid of any of my friends giving the trick away, and so
spoiling the mystery of it for the crowds. It's just as it was in my box
act. If any of you are asked how I do this fire trick you can truly say
you don't know, for none of you will know by my telling, not even Helen,
though she is in on the box secret. I'll only say that I protect my face
and mouth, as well as hands, in a certain way, and that I do, actually,
put the blazing material into my mouth. I am not burned. So if any one
asks you about the act you may tell them that much with absolute truth.
Now the question is--how is it going to go with the audiences? We need
something--or, at least, I do--to create a sensation. Will this answer?"

"I should say so!" exclaimed Jim Tracy. "That ought to go big when it's
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