Benny spoke wistfully. He seemed greatly changed from the boy Joe had known at first. Benny had grown thinner, and he often put his hand to his head, as though suffering constant pain. Joe and Helen felt sorry for him.
Still there was little they could do, except to cheer him up. Benny had to do his own act—which was a unique one that he had evolved after years of practice. It was not alone the staying under water that made it popular, it was the tricks that the lad did.
"Well, we're here at last," said Joe, as he and his friends alighted from their sleeping car. "Better late than never, I suppose."
Men were busy on the circus grounds, putting up tents, arranging the horses and other animals, putting the wagons in their proper places and doing the hundred and one things that need to be done.
"I wonder what's going on over there," said Helen, as she pointed to a group of men about the place where the canvas for the main tent had been spread out in readiness for erection. "It looks like trouble."
"It does," agreed Joe, as he saw Jim Tracy excitedly talking to the canvasmen. "I'm going to see what it is."
He approached the ring-master, who was also one of the owners of the show.
"Anything wrong?" Joe asked.
"Wrong? I should say so! As if I didn't already have troubles enough here, the tent-men go on a strike for more money. I never saw such luck!"