Carl, as has already been stated, had picked up one of the Roman candles. While talking with the Armless Wonder, he leaned back against a tent pole and clasped his hands—the candle in one of them—behind him.
Ping had stepped back. The Roman candle, held fuse end outward, looked most inviting. Digging a match out of his kimono, Ping scratched it on the pole and applied the flame unseen to the fuse.
While the Armless Wonder was talking, Carl heard a long-drawn-out hiss, a smell of smoke came to his nostrils, and a Niagara of sparks floated around him. Naturally he was startled, and it flashed over him that something was wrong with the Roman candle. Bringing the candle around in front of him for examination, he had it leveled at the Wonder the very instant the first fire ball was due. The ball was not behind schedule. Rushing from the end of the tube, it caught the Wonder in the breast, and he turned a back somersault off the platform.
Bewildered by the mysterious cause of the situation, Carl swerved the candle in order to get a look through the smoke and sparks at the place where the Wonder had been seated.
A roar came from the Zulu chief. A ball of flaming red had slapped against his shoulder, and he jumped for the next platform on the right. Landing on the edge, his weight overturned the structure. There was a scream from the Bearded Lady and a whoop from the Elastic Skin Man, and the next moment they landed in a tangled heap on top of the Zulu chief.
"Put it out!" the Armless Wonder continued to yell.
"Point it up or down!" bellowed the gentlemanly trainer of the Educated Pig.
"Ged some vater!" howled Carl, running back and forth and waving the candle; "ged a pucket oof vater und I vill drown der t'ing in it!"
The Dutch boy didn't know what to do. If he dropped the candle he might get hit with some of the balls himself, and if he turned it straight upward he might set fire to the top of the tent. While he was running up and down, trying frantically to think of some way out of the trouble, of course the fire stick was continuing to unload.
Whizz—slap!