hours later he
lay in the dressing-room tent, pretty white, with the doctors over him.
I'll never forget the way he looked up at us when we came in. He was
game all right, but his eyes were awful pathetic. 'Well, boys' said he,
'here I am. I did the best I could.' Turned out he'd done it for a sick
wife and a little baby. Pretty tough, wasn't it?"

Speaking of leaps over elephants brings to my mind an afternoon when I
watched a circus rehearsal in the open air. That is a thing better worth
seeing, to my mind, than the regular performance; the acrobats and
riders in their every-day clothes are more like ordinary men and women,
and their feats seem the more difficult for occasional slips and
failures.

Here, for instance, are a mother and daughter, in shirt-waists, watching
the trick monkey ride a pony, when suddenly a whistle sounds, and off
goes the mother to drive three plunging horses in a chariot-race, while
the daughter hurries to her part in an equestrian quadrille. And now
these children playing near the drilling elephants trot into the ring
and do wonderful things on bicycles. And yonder sleepy-looking man is a
lion-tamer; and those three are the famous Potters, aerial leapers; and
this thick-set fellow in his shirt-sleeves is Artressi, the best jumper
in the circus. He's going to practise now; see, they are putting up the
spring-board and the long downward run that leads to it. These other men
are jumpers, too, but Artressi is the star; he draws the big salary.

[Illustration: "FOUR ELEPHANTS WAS ENOUGH FOR ANY MAN TO LEAP OVER."]

Now they start and spring off rather clumsily, one after another, in
straight leaps to the mattress. They won't work into good form for some
days yet. Here they come again, a little faster, and two of them try
singles. Here comes Artressi. Ah! a double forward, and prettily taken.
The crowd applauds. Now a tall man tries a double. Gradually the
practice gets hotter until every man is doing his best. There will be
stiff joints here in the morning, but never mind!

In a resting-spell I sat down by Artressi and talked with him about
leaping. It was hard, he said, going off a spring-board into empty air.
Didn't know how it was, but he could always do better with something to
leap over, say elephants or horses. He could judge the mattress easier;
wasn't so apt to miss it. What was his biggest leap? Well, four
elephants and three camels was about his best, with a pyramid of men on
top.