“The trouble is they’re getting too used to it,” the man complained.  “Isadora can’t prod them up any more.  They just won’t make a showing.”

“I know them,” Collins nodded.  “They’re pretty old now, and they’re spirit-broken besides.  Take old Sark there.  He’s had so many blank cartridges fired into his ears that he’s stone deaf.  And Selim—­he lost his heart with his teeth.  A Portuguese fellow who was handling him for the Barnum and Bailey show did that for him.  You’ve heard?”

“I’ve often wondered,” the man shook his head.  “It must have been a smash.”

“It was.  The Portuguese did it with an iron bar.  Selim was sulky and took a swipe at him with his paw, and he whopped it to him full in the mouth just as he opened it to let out a roar.  He told me about it himself.  Said Selim’s teeth rattled on the floor like dominoes.  But he shouldn’t have done it.  It was destroying valuable property.  Anyway, they fired him for it.”

“Well, all three of them ain’t worth much to me now,” said their owner.  “They won’t play up to Isadora in that roaring and rampaging at the end.  It really made the turn.  It was our finale, and we always got a great hand for it.  Say, what am I going to do about it anyway?  Ditch it?  Or get some young lions?”

“Isadora would be safer with the old ones,” Collins said.

“Too safe,” Isadora’s husband objected.  “Of course, with younger lions, the work and responsibility piles up on me.  But we’ve got to make our living, and this turn’s about busted.”

Harris Collins shook his head.

“What d’ye mean?—­what’s the idea?” the man demanded eagerly.

“They’ll live for years yet, seeing how captivity has agreed with them,” Collins elucidated.  “If you invest in young lions you run the risk of having them pass out on you.  And you can go right on pulling the trick off with what you’ve got.  All you’ve got to do is to take my advice . . . "

The master-trainer paused, and the lion man opened his mouth to speak.

“Which will cost you,” Collins went on deliberately, “say three hundred dollars.”

“Just for some advice?” the other asked quickly.

“Which I guarantee will work.  What would you have to pay for three new lions?  Here’s where you make money at three hundred.  And it’s the simplest of advice.  I can tell it to you in three words, which is at the rate of a hundred dollars a word, and one of the words is ‘the.’”

“Too steep for me,” the other objected.  “I’ve got a make a living.”

“So have I,” Collins assured him.  “That’s why I’m here.  I’m a specialist, and you’re paying a specialist’s fee.  You’ll be as mad as a hornet when I tell you, it’s that simple; and for the life of me I can’t understand why you don’t already know it.”

“And if it don’t work?” was the dubious query.

“If it don’t work, you don’t pay.”