JOE EATS FIRE
The chemist led the way into a little office. This opened off from the room in which was the apparatus, and where, as Joe had become more and more keenly aware, there was a most unpleasant odor.
"I'll open the window, close the laboratory door, and you won't notice it in a little while," said Mr. Waldon, as he observed Joe's nose twitching. "I'm so used to it I don't mind, but you, coming in from the fresh air—"
"It isn't exactly perfume," interrupted Joe, with a laugh. "But don't be uneasy on my account. I can stand it."
However, he was glad when the fresh air came in through the window. The chemist washed his hands and then sat down at a desk, inviting Joe to draw up his chair.
"Now, what can I do for you?" asked Mr. Waldon. "Is it fire or paper?"
"Well, since I know pretty well what I want to ask you in the matter of fire," replied Joe, "and since I've got a puzzling paper problem here, suppose we tackle the hardest first, and come to the known, and easier, trick later."
"Just as you say," assented Mr. Waldon. "What's your paper problem?"
Joe's answer was to take from the valise several hundreds of the circus tickets. They were the kind sold for fifty cents, or perhaps more in these days of the war tax. They entitle the holder to a seat on what, at a baseball game, would be called the "bleachers." In other words they were not reserved-seat coupons.
However, these tickets were not the one-time blue or red pieces of stiff pasteboard, bearing the name of the circus and the words "ADMIT ONE," which were formerly sold at the gilded wagon. These were handed in at the main entrance, and the tickets were used over and over again. Sometimes the blue ones sold for fifty cents, and a kind selling for seventy-five cents entitled the purchaser to a seat with a folding back to it, though it was not reserved.
But Joe had instituted some changes when he became one of the circus proprietors, and one was in the matter of the general admission tickets. He had them printed on a thin but tough quality of paper, and each ticket was numbered. In this way it needed but a glance at the last ticket in the rack and a look at the memorandum of the last number previously sold at the former performance, to tell exactly how many general admissions had been disposed of.
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.