tter how long a drop would be possible for a gymnast. He
thought a hundred feet might be done by a man of unusual nerve, but he
pointed out that the peril increases enormously with every twenty feet
you add, say to a drop of forty feet. When you have dropped sixty feet
you are falling thirty-five miles an hour; when you have dropped eighty
feet you are falling nearly sixty miles an hour. And so on. It seemed
incredible that a man shooting down, head first, at such velocity would
wait before turning until only two feet separated him from the net.

[Illustration: CIRCUS PROFESSIONALS PRACTISING A FEAT OF BALANCING.]

"It can't be," said I, "that in one of these straight drops a gymnast is
guided only by his sense of time?"

Potter hesitated a moment. "You mean that he uses his eyes to know when
to turn? I guess he does a little, although it is mostly sense of time."

"You wouldn't get a man to do it blindfolded?" I suggested.

"Not a straight drop, no; but a drop with somersaults, yes."

"What, two somersaults down to the net, blindfolded?"

"Yes, sir, that would be easy. I tell you a man's eyes don't help him
when he's turning in the air. Why, Tom and I would throw that boy of
mine (Royetta) across from one to the other, he turning doubles, just
the same whether he was blindfolded or not. It wouldn't make any
difference.

"I'll tell you another thing," he continued, "that may surprise you.
It's possible for a fine gymnast to swing from a bar, say sixty feet
above the net, turn a back somersault--what we call a cast
somersault--then shoot straight down head first for thirty feet and then
tuck up and turn a forward somersault, landing on his shoulders. I
couldn't do it myself ever since I got hurt down in Mexico, but Tom
Hanlon could. I mention this to show what control a man can get over his
body in the air. He can make it turn one way, then go straight, and then
turn the other way."

After proper expression of wonder at this statement, I asked Mr. Potter
if something might not go wrong with this wonderful automatic time
machine that a gymnast carries within himself. Of course there might, he
said, and that is why there is such need of practice. Let a man neglect
his trapeze for a couple of months, and he would be almost like a
beginner. And even the best gymnasts, he admitted, men in the pink of
training, are liable to sudden and unaccountable disturbances of mind or
heart that make them for the moment unequal t