If Sid and Tonzo were jealous of him they took pains to hide that fact from Joe, but some of the others were not so careful. A few of the other gymnasts openly declared that the Lascalla Brothers were getting altogether too much public attention.
"They detract from me," declared Madame Bullriva, the "strong woman," whose star feat was to get beneath a board platform on which stood twelve men, and raise it from the saw-horses across which it lay. True, she only raised it a few inches, but the act was "billed big."
"I don't get half the applause I used to," she complained to Jim Tracy. "You let those 'Spanish onions' have too much time in the ring, and give that Joe Strong a ruffle of drums and the big boom every time he makes the long jump."
"But it's worth it," said the ring-master. "It's a big drawing card."
"So's my act, but I don't get a single drum beat. Can't I have some music with my act?"
"I'll see," promised the ring-master, but he had many other things to think of, and the act of Madame Bullriva went unheralded, to her great disgust.
"Talk about footlight favorites," she complained to Helen Morton, as they dressed together for a performance, "that Joe Strong is getting all that's coming to him."
"Oh, I don't think he tries to take away from any of us," Helen answered.
"No, he doesn't personally. He's a nice boy. But Tracy makes too much fuss over him. I like Joe, but he and his partners are 'crabbing' my act, all right."
"Perhaps if you spoke to him——"