“Oh, Joe, I never could walk a wire, nor slide down on my head, the way you do.  And I don’t see how Rosebud could, either.”  And Helen gave a merry little laugh at the vision she raised.

“Oh, I’m not going to have your horse walk the tight rope nor the high wire!” laughed Joe.  “It would be a corking good stunt if we could, though.  No, this is simpler.  I’ll tell you about it later.”

Mrs. Watson, wife of the veteran clown, called for Helen just then, asking her to go to see one of the women performers who was ill.

“I’ll see you later, Joe,” Helen called out, as she left him.

Joe was busy mixing up some chemicals in a pail on the ground outside his tent when he was accosted by a rather hoarse voice asking: 

“Any chance for a job here, boss?” Joe looked up to see a somewhat disreputable figure of a man observing him.  The fellow looked like the typical tramp, perhaps not quite so ragged and dirty, but still in that class.  However, there was something about the man that attracted Joe’s attention.  As he said afterward, his visitor had about him the air of the “profesh.”

Joe’s first impulse was to say that he knew of no job, or else to refer his accoster to the head canvas man, who hired transient help in putting up the main top and in pulling or driving stakes.  But as Joe observed the man curiously watching him, he had another idea.  Before he could act on it, however, the man exclaimed: 

“You do a fire-eating stunt, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Joe answered.  And then it occurred to him to wonder how the man knew.  True he might have observed Joe in some of the many performances, but the man did not look like one who would spend money on circus tickets.  He might have crawled under the tent, but it did not seem exactly probable.  And, of course, some of the circus employees plight have pointed Joe out to the man as the actor who handled fire.  But, again, Joe did not believe this.  So he asked: 

“How did you know?”

For answer the man pointed to the pail of chemicals into which Joe was about to dip a suit of tights.

“Smelled the dope,” was the brief answer.  “You’re using tungstate of soda, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” answered Joe, surprised that a man, evidently of such a class, should recognize the not very common chemical.

“We used to use alum in the old days,” the man went on.  “I guess the new dope’s better, though I never tried it.”

“Are you in the business?” asked Joe.

“Well, I—­er—­I used to be,” and the man straightened himself up with an air of forgotten pride.  “I was with a circus once—­used to do a fire-eating act and jump into a fake bonfire.  I doped my clothes with alum water though.  That’s great stuff for preventing the fire taking hold if you don’t stay in the blaze too long.  But, as I say, they’ve discovered something new.”

“You used to be a fire-eater?” asked Joe curiously.