had
to come up two seconds sooner than the day before.

"I guess I've been going it too hard practising with Lizzie," he
reflected. "Then, too, I didn't have a motor-cycle ride. I must get out
the machine."

The trained seal was brought into the tent that evening before the
night performance and allowed to climb up the steps to get a fish. The
gasoline incandescent lights were set aglow, for Joe's object was to
see if the strange surroundings at night would bother the seal any.

But Lizzie did not seem to mind. She flopped her way up the steps, ate
the fish and plunged into the tank of water, from which the goldfish
had again been taken.

"I'll have to think up some way of keeping them in when I work with
Lizzie in the water," mused Joe. "They're too pretty to leave out of
the act, but unless I put a muzzle on her I don't see how I can keep
her from eating them. Well, I'll think of that later."

Joe did not get in the tank with Lizzie for practice that night, as he
wanted her to learn gradually. Then, too, he was rather tired, and he
had his trapeze work to do in addition to his aquatic act.

That night Lizzie, by Joe's orders, was left in her crate in the big
tent while the show went on. Joe's object was to let the seal hear the
music and the various noises, to see the lights, and to grow accustomed
to the general atmosphere of a night performance in the "main top."

"Then she'll understand what she has to go through with six days out of
the week during the season," said Joe.

But something funny happened at that night's performance. Joe was in
the midst of his tank act, and was getting ready to come out, prior to
going in for the endurance test, when he heard the now familiar:

"Hook! Hook! Ook!"

"Lizzie's loose!" he exclaimed, looking around from the platform on
which he stood, inflating his lungs with air to get ready for the
four-minute--and longer--under-water stay.

And there, flapping her way over the ground toward the steps that led
to the tank platform, was the trained seal. She had gotten out of her
crate--though how Joe did not know--and was coming to the place she
remembered as her feeding station.

Joe had to act quickly. The tank contained the goldfish, and to let
Lizzie in now would mean that some of the pretty fish would be eaten.
It would not do to have that happen in public.

"Take her back!" Joe cried to some of the ring attendants. "Don't let
her get on the steps."

For Lizzie mov