There was a hasty consultation. By this time the ambulance had arrived and Benny was put in it to be taken to the hospital. The physician promised to give the boy every attention, and to let the circus management know at once how he was getting along.
"Just what he is suffering, from, I can't say," the doctor stated, "but it is something serious, I fear. It was something that made him incapable of helping himself or calling for help."
"All right, Joe," said the ring-master, when it was certain Benny could not finish his act. "You'd better get ready to go into the tank. Can you wear Benny's suit?"
"I guess so, but it will be a pretty tight fit. It's wet, too, and it isn't going to be easy to get into it."
The green, scaly, fish suit had been taken off Benny before he was put into the ambulance.
Joe found he could squeeze into the suit. It was of rubber, and stretched some.
"I'll be ready in a few minutes," he told the ring-master. "You go out and make whatever announcement you please. Sort of tone it down for me, for I don't know that I can please the public on such short notice, particularly as I haven't practised any of Ben's tricks."
"Can't you do some of your own?" asked Helen, as she was leaving the tent, having come back to see how Joe looked in the fish suit. "I mean some of those you used to do with Professor Rosello?"
"That's so—I might," said Joe reflectively. "I've got a box of apparatus in my trunk."
"I'll help you get it out," offered the pretty little trick rider.