The turn over, Barney gladly accepted the halter and was led out of the
square ring and up to the Frenchman.

"Long life there--look him over," Collins continued to sell. "It's a
full turn, including yourself, four performers, besides the mule, and
besides any suckers from the audience. It's all ready to put on the
boards, and dirt cheap at five thousand."

The Frenchman winced at the sum.

"Listen to arithmetic," Collins went on. "You can sell at twelve hundred
a week at least, and you can net eight hundred certain. Six weeks of the
net pays for the turn, and you can book a hundred weeks right off the bat
and have them yelling for more. Wish I was young and footloose. I'd
take it out on the road myself and coin a fortune."

And Barney was sold, and passed out of the Cedarwild Animal School to the
slavery of the spike and to be provocative of much joy and laughter in
the pleasure-theatre of the world.

CHAPTER XXVII

"The thing is, Johnny, you can't love dogs into doing professional
tricks, which is the difference between dogs and women," Collins told his
assistant. "You know how it is with any dog. You love it up into lying
down and rolling over and playing dead and all such dub tricks. And then
one day you show him off to your friends, and the conditions are changed,
and he gets all excited and foolish, and you can't get him to do a thing.
Children are like that. Lose their heads in company, forget all their
training, and throw you down."

"Now on the stage, they got real tricks to do, tricks they don't do,
tricks they hate. And they mightn't be feeling good--got a touch of
cold, or mange, or are sour-balled. What are you going to do? Apologize
to the audience? Besides, on the stage, the programme runs like
clockwork. Got to start performing on the tick of the clock, and
anywhere from one to seven turns a day, all depending what kind of time
you've got. The point is, your dogs have got to get right up and
perform. No loving them, no begging them, no waiting on them. And
there's only the one way. They've got to know when you start, you mean
it."

"And dogs ain't fools," Johnny opined. "They know when you mean
anything, an' when you don't."

"Sure thing," Collins nodded approbation. "The moment you slack up on
them is the moment they slack up in their work. You get soft, and see
how quick they begin making mistakes in their tricks. You've got to keep
the fear of God over them.