The last of all was the “Fire Act.” A little house would be brought on the stage, and Mr. Bonelli would pretend to set fire to it. It was fixed so it wouldn’t really burn, but the fire was inside and came out of the windows, so it looked as though it were burning.
Then Graceful and Ruby would come galloping in harnessed to a little fire engine, with Sancho sitting up in front with the reins in his paws. Diamond stood on the back of the fire engine and kept pushing a gong with his paw so it went “Jang! jang! jang! jang! jang!”
There was a hose on the engine, and Judy had to catch it in her teeth and hold it so that when the water was turned on it would squirt on the house and seem to put the fire out.
We would get on top of the barrels and roll them along with our feet.
I was the little dog that ran about barking when the house was burning, and then pushed the other little dog off the engine and rang the bell myself. We none of us liked this act because of the fire. We were afraid of the fire. Still we had to do as we were told, and we had to practise this act over and over and over again because it was a hard one.
There were a great many other tricks besides these, as I said, but these are enough to show you the sort of things we did.
Every day we practised these things over and over until every one of us knew exactly what he was to do and when he was to do it.
Then one morning we didn’t practise. We played out in the yard and around the house, and we didn’t have any lessons.
In the afternoon two men came to the house, and Mr. Bonelli called to us and whistled us into the room where he and the men were.