He had on his fish suit and, moving slowly in order not to alarm the sea-lion, Joe went into the glass tank with her. At first Lizzie seemed a bit timid, and came out. But Joe coaxed her in again with a bit of fish, and soon he and the seal were swimming about in the big glass tank, while the circus folk outside applauded gladly.
Around and around swam Joe, going through many evolutions, and, swimming sometimes at his side, sometimes above and sometimes below him, went Lizzie.
"Say! That's a great act!" cried Jim Tracy, coming in at that moment. "A great act!"
He told Joe as much when the boy fish came out to breathe, as Lizzie had also to do, for a seal has lungs, and not gills like a fish.
"It was a great act, Joe!" said the ring-master.
"It remains to be seen whether she'll do as nicely in public," Joe replied.
CHAPTER XVIII
SAD NEWS
Joe spent as much time as he could spare before the afternoon performance in practising with Lizzie. The trained seal seemed to have taken naturally to the boy fish and was becoming quite friendly. She would let Joe put his arms around her as they both swam under water, and she made no attempts to bite. This was one thing Joe had feared, for he knew that a nip from the sharp teeth of the sea-lion would make a bad wound.
But Lizzie seemed content with the fish, and the number of them she could eat and the ease with which she bit them into two pieces when they were too large to take at one mouthful showed her appetite as well as the strength of her jaws and the keenness of her teeth.