"You don't need to, now. I want to spring it on you, as well as on the public. Just give me a man to yank off the canvas cover when I say the word, and that'll be all I want."
"All right, Joe. It's your affair, as long as you do as we've advertised."
"I'll do that and more, Jim Tracy. Leave it to me."
Joe's trapeze work came first on the programme, and while he liked this as well as ever and did his usual hair-raising feats, this day he was a bit impatient for the act to be over, so he could do what he had planned in the tank.
At last, however, he made his final swing, and dropped down into the life net amid the plaudits of the crowd. Then Joe hurried to the dressing tent to get into Benny's scaly, green, rubber suit.
"That's another thing I'm going to do when I get around to it," thought Joe, as he squeezed himself into the garments. "I'm going to have another suit, different, and of another color. I've got to change this act about to bring it up to my ideas."
Out on the little platform at the edge of the tank, Joe took his place. Jim Tracy, standing near by on the ground, pointed up to the queerly-clad figure and made his usual dramatic announcement.
"And now," finished the ring-master, "the boy fish will show you that it is as easy for him to live, move and have his being under water, as it is for ordinary mortals in the atmosphere of this earth. Ready!"
"Ready!" cried Joe, and he nodded to the attendant who stood ready to pull a rope that would let fall from the tank the canvas that concealed it from view.
CHAPTER IX