as devoted to boarding trained animals and troupes of animals for owners
who were out of engagements, or for estates of such owners which were in
process of settlement. From mice and rats to camels and elephants, and
even, on occasion, to a rhinoceros or a pair of hippopotamuses, he could
supply any animal on demand.

When the Circling Brothers' big three-ring show on a hard winter went
into the hands of the receivers, he boarded the menagerie and the horses
and in three months turned a profit of fifteen thousand dollars. More--he
mortgaged all he possessed against the day of the auction, bought in the
trained horses and ponies, the giraffe herd and the performing elephants,
and, in six months more was quit of an of them, save the pony Repeater
who turned air-springs, at another profit of fifteen thousand dollars. As
for Repeater, he sold the pony several months later for a sheer profit of
two thousand. While this bankruptcy of the Circling Brothers had been
the greatest financial achievement of Harris Collin's life, nevertheless
he enjoyed no mean permanent income from his plant, and, in addition,
split fees with the owners of his board animals when he sent them to the
winter Hippodrome shows, and, more often than not, failed to split any
fee at all when he rented the animals to moving-picture companies.

Animal men, the country over, acknowledged him to be, not only the
richest in the business, but the king of trainers and the grittiest man
who ever went into a cage. And those who from the inside had seen him
work were agreed that he had no soul. Yet his wife and children, and
those in his small social circle, thought otherwise. They, never seeing
him at work, were convinced that no softer-hearted, more sentimental man
had ever been born. His voice was low and gentle, his gestures were
delicate, his views on life, the world, religion and politics, the
mildest. A kind word melted him. A plea won him. He gave to all local
charities, and was gravely depressed for a week when the Titanic went
down. And yet--the men in the trained-animal game acknowledged him the
nerviest and most nerveless of the profession. And yet--his greatest
fear in the world was that his large, stout wife, at table, should crown
him with a plate of hot soup. Twice, in a tantrum, she had done this
during their earlier married life. In addition to his fear that she
might do it again, he loved her sincerely and devotedly, as he loved his