Joe Strong The Boy Fire Eater - Vance Barnum
These numbered tickets were not used over again, but were destroyed
after the day's accounts had been made up. At first Joe and some others
of the officials had had an idea that the man who was charged with the
work of destroying the tickets, instead of doing so, had kept some out
and sold them at a reduced price. But an investigation proved that this
was not the case.
"Some one is ringing in extra tickets on us," stated Joe to the chemist.
"We want to find out who it is and how the trick is worked. So far, we
haven't been able to find this out. As a matter of fact, we don't know
whether there are bogus tickets in our boxes or not. We haven't been
able to detect two kinds. They all seem the same."
"Some numbers must be duplicated," said Mr. Waldon, as he picked up a
handful of the slips Joe had brought. "That's very obvious. The numbers
must be duplicated in some instances."
"Yes, we have discovered that," returned Joe. "But the queer part is,
taking even two tickets with the same number, we don't know which was
sold at our ticket wagon and which is the bogus one. Here's a case in
point."
He picked up two of the coupons. As far as eye or touch could tell they
were identical, and they bore the same red number, one up in the
hundred thousands.
"Now," continued Joe, "can you tell which of these two is the official
circus ticket and which is the bogus one?"
The chemist thought for a moment.
"Have you a ticket--say one issued some time ago--which you are positive
is genuine?" he asked.
"I'm ready for you there," answered Joe. "Here's a coupon that happened
to escape destruction. It was one sold several weeks ago at our ticket
wagon, before we noticed this trouble. I bought the ticket myself, so I
know. I happened to be passing the wagon, and a boy was trying to reach
up to buy a fifty cent seat. He wasn't quite tall enough, so I reached
for him.
"Then, when I looked at him, I saw that fifty cents meant a lot to him.
I gave him back his half dollar out of my own pocket, and passed him in
to a reserved seat. But I forgot to turn the ticket in to the wagon, and
it's been in my pocket ever since. Now I'm glad I saved it, for it will
serve as a tester."
"Yes," admitted the chemist, "it will. It's a good thing you have this.
But, Mr. Strong, this is going to take some time. I'll have to compare
all these tickets with the admittedly genuine one, and I'll have to make
some intricate tests."
"Well, I hoped you might be able to tell me right off the reel which of
these coupons were good and which bad," said Joe. "But I can appreciate
that it isn't easy. We certainly have been puzzled. So I'll leave them
with you, and you can write to me when you have any results. I'll leave
you a list of the towns where we'll be showing for the next two weeks.
And now suppose we get at the fire-eating business."
"All right," was the reply of the chemist. "But with the understanding
that you do all the eating. I haven't any appetite that way myself."
They both laughed, and then, for some hours, Joe Strong was closeted
with the chemist.
When Joe emerged from the office of Mr. Waldon there was a look of
satisfaction on the face of the young magician.
"I think I can make quite an act, after what you've told me," he said.
"As soon as I get it perfected I'll send you word and you can come to
see me."
"I will, if you aren't too far away," promised the chemist.
That night, following the closing of the performance, Joe invited Helen,
Jim Tracy, and a few of his more intimate friends and associates into
his private dressing tent.
"I have the nucleus of a new act," he said, when they were seated in
chairs before a small table, on which were several pieces of apparatus.
"Just give me your opinion of this."
Joe lighted a candle, picked up on a fork what seemed to be a piece of
bread, and touched it to the candle flame. In an instant the object that
was on the fork burst into a blaze, and, before the eyes of his friends,
Joe calmly put the flaming portion into his mouth.
He closed his lips, seemed to be chewing something, opened his mouth,
and showed it empty.
"A little light lunch!" he remarked, but his smile faded as Helen
screamed in horror.
CHAPTER IX
THE CHEMIST'S LETTER
"Oh, Joe, you'll surely burn yourself!" exclaimed the startled bareback
rider.
"Did you get burned?" questioned Mrs. Watson.
"Some trick!" declared the snake charmer.
For the moment there was some excitement, for this was a new act for the
circus people.
Helen soon recovered her customary composure, and then she explained the
cause of her excitement and the startled cry she had given. She had, of
course, expected some trick with fire when Joe had summoned her and the
others to his own private part of the dressing tents. But she had not
expected to see him actually put the blazing material in his mouth.
"I thought there was some sleight-of-hand performance about it," she
said. "I had an idea that you only pretended to put the blazing stuff in
your mouth, Joe. And when I saw it I was afraid you'd breathe in the
flames and--and--"
She did not need to go on, they all understood what she meant, for
every one in the circus knew that Helen and Joe were engaged.
"I once saw a little boy burned at a bonfire at which he was playing,"
went on Helen. "He died. Since then the sight of fire near a human being
has always a bad effect on me. But I suppose I can get over it, if I
know there is no danger," she said with a slight smile at Joe.
"Well, I can assure you there isn't the slightest danger," he declared.
"If there was, I should be the first to give it up. I am as fond of
living as any one."
"You don't show it, young man, in some of the tricks you do," commented
Mrs. Watson, with the freedom befitting a "circus mother," and the
privilege of an old friend. "You must remember that you don't live only
for yourself," and she looked significantly at Helen.
"Oh, I'll be careful!" promised Joe. "And now I'll do the trick again
for you, and let you see that it's absolutely harmless. Any of you could
do it--if you knew how."
"Excuse me!" exclaimed Jim Tracy. "Not for mine!"
However they all watched Joe eagerly and interestedly, even Helen. He
did not seem to make any unusual preparations. He merely took a drink of
what seemed to be water. Then he ignited something in the flame of the
candle and placed the burning stuff in his mouth, seeming to chew it
with 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 on the mucous membrane of the throat
and passages is fatal. So when the terms "fire-eating" or "fire-eater"
are used it will be in the sense of its being a theatrical act. There is
a trick about it, and the trick is this:
In the first place, the flame itself is produced by blazing alcohol.
This produces a blaze, and a hot one, too, but there is no smoke. In
other words, the combustion is almost perfect, there being no residue of
carbon to remain hot after the actual flame is extinguished.
And now as to the actual putting into one's mouth something that is
blazing hot: It all depends on a very simple principle.
If the hand be thoroughly wet in water it may be safely thrust for a
fraction of a second into a flaming gas jet. But mark this--for the
_fraction of a second only_. The water forms a protecting film for the
skin, and before it is evaporated the hand must be taken out of danger.
In other words, there is needed an appreciable time for the fire to beat
the skin to the burning point.
This immunity from burns, to which the professional fire-eaters owe
their success, comes from this film of moisture on their skin. They do
not always use water--in fact, this is only serviceable for a momentary
contact with flame, and, at that, on the hands or face. In case a longer
contact is desired, a fire-resisting chemical liquid is used.
It is about the contact of flame with the tender mucous membrane
surfaces of the mouth and throat that Joe, as a fire-eater, was most
concerned.
In the first place, there is a constant film of the secretion called
saliva always flowing in the mouth. It comes from glands in the throat
and mouth, and is very necessary to good digestion.
Now, for a very brief period this saliva, which is just the same as a
film of water on the hand, resists the fire. But professional
fire-eaters do not depend on saliva alone. They use a chemical solution,
and this is what Joe did when he drank something from a glass.
What that chemical solution was, Joe kept as a closely guarded
professional secret. He feared, too, that some boy might make it, rinse
his mouth out with it, and then, getting an audience of his chums
together, might try to eat some blazing coals. He might, and very likely
would, be severely burned, and his parents or those in charge of him
would blame Joe for allowing such dangerous information to leak out.
So, though he guarded all his secrets of magic, he was particularly
careful to keep this one to himself.
But Joe protected his mouth and throat with a fire-resisting liquid, the
formula for which was given him by the chemist to whom he submitted the
circus tickets.
The success of Joe and others of his kind depends also in this on a
well known natural law. It is that there can be no combustion in the
ordinary sense where there is no oxygen. As a candle will surely go out
if enclosed in an air-tight receptacle--that is, it will go out as soon
as it has burned up all the oxygen--just so surely will flame of any
kind go out when a person closes his mouth on it. And as there is
scarcely any air in the closed mouth--all of it going down the bronchial
tubes into the lungs--it follows that the flame dies out almost
instantly. That fact being considered, and the mouth and throat having
been previously treated with the secret chemical, there is really not so
much danger as appears.
As a matter of fact, a person inadvertently swallowing hot tea or coffee
will burn or scald his mouth or tongue much more painfully than will a
professional fire-eater. Most people know how painful a burned tongue
is.
Joe told something of the history of fire-eating "champions" to his
audience of friends, for it appeared that he had been reading up on the
subject and was well informed. Then he announced that the private
rehearsal was over.
"But I'm going to work this fire-eating up into something that will
cause a sensation," he said. And he made good his promise.
It was about a week after this, and the circus had been traveling
about, playing to good business, when Joe received a letter. In the
upper left-hand corner was the imprint of Herbert Waldon, Chemist.
"I hope he has some news about the circus tickets!" exclaimed Joe. For
the show had been losing money steadily by means of the bogus coupons;
not as much as at first, but enough to make it necessary to discover the
fraud. And, so far, Mr. Moyne had not been successful.
"Perhaps this explains the mystery," mused Joe as he opened the letter.
CHAPTER X
THE PET CAT
The typewritten sheet of the letter from Mr. Waldon enclosed two of the
engraved circus coupons. They fluttered to the floor of Joe's private
tent as he tore open the envelope.
"Well, either he has discovered something, or he has sent them back and
given up," mused the young magician. "Let's see what he says."
Joe quickly took in the contents of the letter. In effect it stated that
Mr. Waldon had discovered which were the bogus and which were the real
circus tickets. He first gave an explanation of the chemical tests he
used. Joe read this hastily, but carefully, then passed to the
conclusions arrived at by the expert, who was an authority on various
kinds of paper, as well as chemicals.
"The ticket I have marked No. 1 is a genuine coupon, issued by your
circus corporation," said Mr. Waldon in his letter. "The slip marked by
me as No. 2 is a counterfeit. You will observe that they both bear the
red ink serial number 356,891.
"If you were a paper expert you would observe that the paper used in
the two tickets is different. There is not a very great difference, and
I am inclined to think that both the genuine and the counterfeit tickets
were made on paper from the same mill, but of a different 'run.' That
is, it was made at a different time.
"The printer who manufactured your tickets bought his paper from a
certain mill making a specialty of this particular kind. Then some one,
who must know something of your financial and business interests, had
the bogus tickets made, and on the same kind of paper. But there is a
slight difference, which I was able to detect by means of chemical
reactions. The coloring matter used varied slightly, though the texture
of the two kinds of paper is almost exactly similar.
"Now, having settled that point, the solution of the remaining equations
of the problem rests with you. I can not tell who had the bogus tickets
printed. You will have to go to the mill making the paper and find out
to whom they sold this kind. In that way you will learn the names of all
printers, using it, and by a process of elimination you will get at the
one who printed the counterfeits.
"This printer may be an innocent party, or he may be guilty. That is for
you and the detectives to determine. I hope I have started you on the
right track. I shall be interested to hear, my dear Mr. Strong, how you
make out in your fire-eating act."
"I'll tell him as soon as I try it on a real audience," said Joe, with a
smile, as he folded the letter. "And so counterfeit tickets have been
rung in on us! Well, I suspected that, since our own men were thoroughly
to be trusted. Now to get at the guilty ones. And I shouldn't be
surprised if I could name one of the men involved. But I'll call a
meeting, and lay this before the directors."
The Sampson Brothers' Show was incorporated and was run strictly on
business lines. There was a board of directors who looked after all
business matters, and Joe was soon in consultation with them, laying
before them Mr. Waldon's letter and the two marked tickets.
"It would take an expert to tell them apart," said Mr. Moyne, as he
examined the coupons closely. "Well, what are we to do?"
"In the first place," declared Joe, "we must change our form of general
admission tickets at once. That will stop the fraud, graft, or whatever
you want to call it. Then we must do as Mr. Waldon says--look for the
guilty parties. We'll have to hire some detectives, I think."
This plan was voted a good one, and steps were at once taken to change
the form and style of the general admission tickets. Joe also wired for
a man from a well known detective agency to meet the show at the next
town. Then the printing shop which made the circus tickets was
communicated with.
That was all that could be done at present, and Joe gave his attention
to perfecting his new fire-eating act.
He did not give up his mystery box trick, and he still presented the
vanishing lady illusion, Helen assisting in both of these. Joe also did
the big swing, which always caused a thrill on account of the danger
involved. Careful watch was kept over the trapeze and other apparatus so
that no more dangerous tampering could he attempted, and Joe always
looked over everything with sharp eyes before trusting himself high in
the air.
"Some one evidently has a grudge against me as well as against the
circus in general," he said to Jim Tracy.
"Maybe it's the same person," suggested the ringmaster.
"Perhaps. Well, as soon as we get some word from the detectives we can
start on the trail."
The circus had arrived at a large city, where it was to show three days
and nights, and preparations were made for big crowds, as the city was
the center of a large number of industries, where many thousands of men
were employed at good wages.
"We'll play to 'Straw Room Only' at every performance," said Mr. Moyne,
rubbing his hands with glee as he thought of the dollars that would be
taken in. "And I'm glad we discovered the bogus tickets in time. We'd be
out a lot of money if the counterfeits were to be used here."
"Yes," agreed Joe. "But we aren't out of the woods yet. The same man who
imitated the light green tickets may have the bright blue ones which we
now use for general admission duplicated and sell them."
"We'll have to take that chance," said the treasurer. "But I'll instruct
the ticket takers to be unusually careful."
That was all that could be done. The detective had reported that he was
making an examination, starting at the paper mill, and was endeavoring
to learn where the bogus tickets had been made.
The circus parade had been held and witnessed by enthusiastic crowds
lining the streets. Then was every prospect of big business, and it was
borne out.
Joe wished he had prepared his fire act earlier but it could not be
helped.
"I'll have it ready for to-morrow, though," he said to Jim Tracy, at the
conclusion of the first afternoon in the big city where they were to
stay three days.
"Then I'm going to have it advertised," said the ringmaster, who also
sometimes acted as assistant general manager. "We'll bill it big. You're
sure of yourself, are you?"
"Oh, yes," answered Joe with a laugh. "I'll give 'em their money's worth
all right, but it won't be the big sensation I'm planning for later on.
That will take time."
"Well, as long as it's a fire act it will be new and novel, and it will
draw," declared Jim Tracy.
It was later in the afternoon, when the circus performance was over,
that Joe and Helen strolled downtown, as was their custom. Some
convention was being held in the city, and across one of the principal
streets was stretched a big banner of the kind used in political
campaigns.
It was hung from a heavy, slack wire from the brick walls of two
opposite buildings, and the banner attracted considerable attention
because of a novel picture on it.
Joe and Helen were standing in the street, looking up at the swaying
creation of canvas and netting, when a woman's cry came to their ears.
"Look! Look! The cat! The cat is walking the wire!" she exclaimed.
Joe and Helen turned first to see who it was that had cried out. It was
a woman in the street, and with her parasol she pointed upward.
There, surely enough, half way out on the thick, slack wire, and high
above the middle of the street was a large white cat. It was walking
the wire as one's pet might walk the back fence. But this cat seemed to
have lost its nerve. It had got half way across, but was afraid to go
farther and could not turn around and go back.
As Joe and Helen looked, a woman appeared at the window of one of the
buildings from the front walls of which the banner was suspended, and,
pointing at the cat, cried:
"A hundred dollars to whoever saves my cat! A hundred dollars reward!"
CHAPTER XI
THE RESCUE
The tumult which had arisen in the street beneath the banner when the
crowd caught sight of the cat was hushed for a moment after the woman's
frantic cry. Before that there had been some laughter, and not a few
cat-calls and exaggerated "miaows" from boys in the street. But now
every one, even the mischievous urchins, seemed to sense that something
unusual was about to take place.
"Come back, Peter! Come back!" cried the woman, stretching out her arms
to the cat from the window out of which she leaned. "Come back to me!"
The white cat on the wire heard the voice of the woman and seemed to
want to return to its mistress. But either the cat was not an adept at
turning on such a narrow support, or it was afraid to try.
And, likewise, it was afraid to go forward. There it stood, about in the
middle of the wire, high above the street, and it clung to its perch by
its claws.
The banner was hung from the cross wire by means of several loops of
rope, and it was in some of these loops that the cat had stuck its
claws, and so hung on.
As the cat remained there, suspended, the crowd in the street below
increased in size. But from the time the woman had so frantically called
there had been no more of the cries from the crowd that might be
expected to frighten the animal.
"Will some one get my cat?" cried the woman in a shrill voice, which
could easily be heard by Joe, Helen, and nearly every one else. "I'll
give one hundred dollars in cash to whoever saves him!" she went on.
"Come back, Peter! Come back!" she appealed.
There was a thoughtless laugh from some one at the woman's anxiety, and
some one cried:
"There's lots of cats! Let Peter go!"
"The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals ought to get after
whoever that was," said Helen indignantly, and there was an approving
murmur from some of those near her.
"Does any one know that lady?" asked Joe, pointing at the figure in the
window. A pathetic figure it was, too, of an old woman clad in black, as
though she had lost all her friends.
"Yes, she's a queer character," said some one who seemed to know. "Lives
up there all alone in the old house that, except for the upper part
where she is now, has been turned into offices.
"She's rich, they say. Owns that building and a lot of others on this
street. But she lives all alone in a few rooms, and has a lot of pet
cats. I guess that's one which got away."
"It got away all right," said another man. "And I don't believe she'll
ever get it back. The cat's scared to death."
"Why doesn't it jump?" asked some one. "I heard that cats always land on
their feet, no matter how far they fall."
"A fall from there would kill any cat," said Joe, as he handed Helen a
small package he had been carrying--a purchase he had made at one of the
stores.
"What are you going to do?" she asked, sensing that Joe Strong had some
object in mind.
"I'm going to get that cat," he said in a low voice. "I can't bear to
see it harmed, and it can't cling there much longer. Night's coming on,
too, and if it isn't rescued soon it won't be until morning. I know what
it is to have a pet suffer. I'm going to get that cat!"
"Oh, mister, you can't!" cried a small girl who was standing near by and
overheard this remark.
"I should say not!" exclaimed the man who had given a little personal
sketch of the woman in black. "The longest ladder in the fire department
won't reach up to that wire, and they can't use extension ones, or
scaling ones as they could on a building. You can't get that cat, sir,
though I wish some one could. I don't like to see dumb brutes suffer.
But you can't get it!"
"Perhaps I can!" said Joe modestly.
He started toward the street entrance of the old building, from the
upper window of which leaned the pathetic figure of the woman calling to
her cat out on the swaying wire.