Joe shook his head.
"It may be some secret process they have of treating ropes to make them tougher, so they'll last longer," Joe said. "They may call it ripening, but I never heard of it. I'll ask them."
"Don't tell them I saw them," Helen cautioned him.
"Of course not," Joe answered. "Perhaps it may be a professional secret with them, and they won't tell me anyhow. But I'll ask."
But when Joe, as casually as he could, inquired of Sid and Tonzo what they knew of ripening trapeze ropes, the two Spaniards shook their heads, though, unseen by Joe, a quick look passed between them.
"I sometimes oil my ropes, to make them pliable," Tonzo admitted. "Olive oil I use. But it does not make them ripe."
"I guess that must have been it," thought Joe. "Helen was probably mistaken. It might have been a word that sounded like ripening."
So he said no more about it then, though when he reported to Helen the result of his questioning, she shook her head.
"I'm sure I heard aright," she declared. "And they were pouring something from a bottle on the trapeze rope from which they had pushed the silk covering."
"It might have been olive oil," Joe said.