The performer could jerk himself around anywhere in the arena, and being a good acrobat, he had no difficulty in reaching his horse. Much care had to be exercised, however, because the slightest kick against the horse would have sent the horse to the opposite side.
Slowly the gravitation was turned on, and both horse and rider sank gracefully toward the ground, where with the full gravitation restored, the horse and rider made their exit.
The next act was one that even Ralph had not seen. Two experts at juggling bounded into the arena and after the gravitation was cut off one of them placed a billiard cue on his forehead, and an old-fashioned hand lamp on top of the cue. The juggler then took the cue away and withdrew jerkily. The lamp remained in the same position, until brought down by one of the performers.
The tricks aroused great enthusiasm among the audience. An acrobat, using one of the billiard cues as a standing trapeze, revolved around the trapeze as if it were held securely in place. By jerking around the billiard cue, it was made to appear as if he was actually swinging around under his full "weight."
A beautiful effect was obtained when the jugglers brought several colored glass pitchers, filled with different-colored liquids. When the pitchers were inverted, nothing happened, because the liquid, having no weight, could not flow out. However, by turning the pitcher upside down and suddenly jerking it away the colored liquid, due to its own lag or inertia, stayed behind.
Due to the surface tension of liquids, it did not retain the shape of the pitcher, but formed itself immediately into a globe. The jugglers emptied a number of pitchers all in a row, leaving behind the globular liquid balls, formed of water and fruit juices.
The jugglers approached the balls and began to drink, simply by placing their lips against them. They then demonstrated the mobility of the water balls by pushing their fingers into them and cutting the balls in two, the halves immediately becoming new and smaller balls. Then by carefully giving each of the balls a slight push, the water balls would gravitate up to the ceiling of the arena and still having enough momentum left they would rebound and come back, only to be pushed up again by flat tennis racquets.
This had to be done carefully because the slightest false motion spread out the water balls into a flat sheet. The surface tension of the liquid always reasserted itself and the water balls came down sometimes in an elliptical shape. Every time the flat tennis racquet hit the balls, they lost their shape momentarily, but soon were globular again.
The two jugglers finally managed to push the liquid spheres one into another, until finally all balls had been joined into one. This, of course, amalgamated the various colors, but the colors had been made in such a way that the ball became a somewhat dirty-looking white, all the colors having recombined, making one color, just as all the hues of the rainbow, if combined together, make white.
The final act was where a huge water ball, about twenty-five feet in diameter, was pushed to the center of the arena, while a number of pretty girls entered the liquid itself and swam within the ball. The ball was lit up by strong searchlights, and the entire arena darkened, as the girls swam within the clear crystal water ball. When the swimmers needed air, all they had to do was to push their heads out of the sphere, breathe, and then resume "swimming," or jerking themselves around within the weightless water.