“Long life there—­look him over,” Collins continued to sell.  “It’s a full turn, including yourself, four performers, besides the mule, and besides any suckers from the audience.  It’s all ready to put on the boards, and dirt cheap at five thousand.”

The Frenchman winced at the sum.

“Listen to arithmetic,” Collins went on.  “You can sell at twelve hundred a week at least, and you can net eight hundred certain.  Six weeks of the net pays for the turn, and you can book a hundred weeks right off the bat and have them yelling for more.  Wish I was young and footloose.  I’d take it out on the road myself and coin a fortune.”

And Barney was sold, and passed out of the Cedarwild Animal School to the slavery of the spike and to be provocative of much joy and laughter in the pleasure-theatre of the world.

CHAPTER XXVII

“The thing is, Johnny, you can’t love dogs into doing professional tricks, which is the difference between dogs and women,” Collins told his assistant.  “You know how it is with any dog.  You love it up into lying down and rolling over and playing dead and all such dub tricks.  And then one day you show him off to your friends, and the conditions are changed, and he gets all excited and foolish, and you can’t get him to do a thing.  Children are like that.  Lose their heads in company, forget all their training, and throw you down.”

“Now on the stage, they got real tricks to do, tricks they don’t do, tricks they hate.  And they mightn’t be feeling good—­got a touch of cold, or mange, or are sour-balled.  What are you going to do?  Apologize to the audience?  Besides, on the stage, the programme runs like clockwork.  Got to start performing on the tick of the clock, and anywhere from one to seven turns a day, all depending what kind of time you’ve got.  The point is, your dogs have got to get right up and perform.  No loving them, no begging them, no waiting on them.  And there’s only the one way.  They’ve got to know when you start, you mean it.”

“And dogs ain’t fools,” Johnny opined.  “They know when you mean anything, an’ when you don’t.”

“Sure thing,” Collins nodded approbation.  “The moment you slack up on them is the moment they slack up in their work.  You get soft, and see how quick they begin making mistakes in their tricks.  You’ve got to keep the fear of God over them.  If you don’t, they won’t, and you’ll find yourself begging for spotted time on the bush circuits.”

Half an hour later, Michael heard, though he understood no word of it, the master-trainer laying another law down to another assistant.

“Cross-breds and mongrels are what’s needed, Charles.  Not one thoroughbred in ten makes good, unless he’s got the heart of a coward, and that’s just what distinguishes them from mongrels and cross-breds.  Like race-horses, they’re hot-blooded.  They’ve got sensitiveness, and pride.  Pride’s the worst.  You listen to me.  I was born into the business and I’ve studied it all my life.  I’m a success.  There’s only one reason I’m a success—­I KNOW.  Get that.  I KNOW.”