"I hope it works all right," the ring-master said. "You'll have to try it out in private."
"Oh, surely," assented Joe.
He made arrangements to have his motor-cycle and seal added to the car in which his tank and goldfish were carried, so all his special possessions would be together.
"As soon as I get Lizzie trained, or partly so, I'll begin to practise motor-cycling," Joe decided.
He began the seal's education the second day after he obtained possession of her, allowing one day to go past so Lizzie could get used to her new quarters. Then, as soon as the tank was set up and filled with water, Joe had the seal taken to the foot of the steps that led to the platform. Lizzie had been trained to go up a short flight of steps to her own tank.
"Now to see what she'll do," said Joe, as Helen and some others of the circus folk gathered about to watch the experiment. Joe had arranged for a supply of fresh fish, and one of these he now put on the top step.
Lizzie flapped out of her box, she smelled the fish, and, looking at it, she cried: "Hook! Hook! Hook!" and up the steps she went as she had been in the habit of doing.
"Now if she'll only go into the tank that will be part of the game solved," mused Joe. He had not put in the goldfish, for he knew, no matter how well trained Lizzie was, she would surely eat the fish if they were left in the tank. The problem of using them in his new act was one Joe had not yet solved.
Up the steps, in her peculiar manner, went Lizzie, the trained seal, and at the top she gulped down the fish. Then, after a moment's hesitation, in which she looked about the tank, she plunged in and began to swim about as though used to it all her life.
"Good!" cried Joe. "The glass sides didn't bother her a bit. I was afraid they would. Now to see how she acts with me."