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“Nah, the rubes don’t wear celluloid collars any more. Ya can’t slip any wire tricks over on ’em!”

“But he can do this in a big topless tent, or even out in an open field, if you like.”

“Nope–steel rods run up the middle of a rope has been done before.”

“Steel rods in a rope which the people see uncoil from the ground in front of their eyes?”

“Well, they’d think of somethin’ else, then. I’m tellin’ ya, it won’t go! Sure, people like to be fooled, but they want it to be done right !”

“Yes!” I sneered. “And a hell of a lot of people have fooled themselves right about this matter, too!”

He looked at me curiously.

“Say, have ya really got somethin’ up y’r sleeve?”

“You’d be surprised!”

Thus he grudgingly gave us a chance for a tryout; and he was surprised indeed. But on thinking it over, he decided like the vaudeville man.

“Listen!” said Tristan suddenly, in a voice of desperation. “I’ll do a parachute jump into the sky, and land on an airplane!”

“Tristan!” shrieked Alice, in horror.

The circus man nearly lost his cigar, then bit it in two.

“Sa-ay–what the–I’ll call that right now! I’ll get ya the plane and chute if y’ll put up a deposit to cover the cost. If ya do it, we’ll have the best money in the tents; if ya don’t, I keep the money!”

“If I don’t,” said Tristan distinctly, “I’ll have not the slightest need for the money.”

But the airplane idea was out; we could think of no way for him to make the landing on such a swiftly-moving vehicle.

Again Alice solved it.

“If you absolutely must break my heart and put me in a sanitarium,” she sobbed, “get a blimp!”

Of course! And that is what we did–on the first attempt coming unpleasantly close to doing just that to Alice.

* * * * *

The blimp captain was obviously skeptical, and betrayed signs of a peeve at having his machine hired for a hoax; but money was money and he agreed to obey our instructions meticulously. His tone was perfunctory, however, despite my desperate attempts to impress him with the seriousness of the matter; and that nonchalance of his came near to having dire consequences.

The captain was supplied with a sort of boat-hook with instructions to steer his course to reach the parachute ropes as it passed him on its upward flight. And he was seriously warned of the fact that, after the chute reached two or three thousand feet, its speed would increase because of the rarefaction of the air; and in case of a miss, it would become constantly harder to overtake. These directions he received with a scornful half smile; obviously he never expected to see the chute open.

We got all set, the blimp circling overhead, Tristan upside down in his seat suspended skyward, a desperately grim look on his face; and Alice almost in collapse. We were all spared the agony of several hundred feet of unbroken fall; the parachute was open on the ground, and rose at a leisurely speed, but too fast at that for the comfort of any of us. I don’t think the wondering crowd and the dumbfounded circus people ever saw a stranger sight than that chute drifting upward into the blue. We heard nothing of “hidden wires,” then or ever after! The white circle grew pitifully small and forlorn against the fathomless azure; and suddenly we noticed that the blimp seemed to be merely drifting with the wind, making no attempt to get under–or over–Tristan. Our hearts labored painfully. Had the engines broken down? Alice buried her face against my sleeve with a moan.

“I can’t look … tell me!”

I tried to–in a voice which I vainly tried to make steady.