"Why, the Hippodrome," continued Bowles, "is an immense playhouse right in the heart of New York that's given over entirely to spectacles. It has a stage large enough to accommodate a thousand people, and a great lake out in front that is big enough to float a fleet of boats; and every year they put on some new spectacle. One year it will be the battle of Manila Bay, for instance, with ships and men and cannons, and a great shipwreck scene right there in the lake, with people falling overboard and getting drowned--and the peculiar thing is that when a boatload of people fall into that lake they never come up again. It's just the same as if they were drowned." "Aw, say," broke in Brigham, "you're givin' me a fill, ain't you?" "No," protested Bowles warmly; "I'm telling you the truth. Why, I saw the most glorious spectacle there one night. It represented the tempting of some young prince by Cleopatra, the beautiful Egyptian queen. There were six hundred women in the play, and as they marched and countermarched across the stage the lights would throw soft colors about them, and then as they danced the colors would change, until the whole place looked like fairyland. Then they would swing up into the air on invisible wires and hover about like butterflies--there would be a flash and all would have wings--and then they would disappear again and come out dressed in armor like Amazons. And in the last act, when the prince had sent them away, they marched down the broad stone steps that lead into the lake, four abreast, and without taking a deep breath, or showing any concern whatever, they just walked right into that deep water and disappeared. Never came up again. Gone, the whole six hundred of them!" "Gone!" echoed Brigham in amazement. "Where to? Where'd they go to?" "Under the water--that's all I know." "Gee, what a lie!" exclaimed Brigham, rising up in bed. "By jicks, pardner, I shore have to take off my hat to you--you got a wonderful imagination!" "No, indeed!" protested Bowles. "It's every word of it true. This Hippodrome was designed by the same man who built Luna Park, and invented the loop the loop, and shoot the chutes, and all those other wonderful things. I was reading an article about that Hippodrome lake and it seems he built some kind of a great metal hood down under the water and filled it with compressed air of just the right pressure to displace the water. All the details are held secret, and the very people who use it are kept in ignorance, but as near as can be found out the performers dive right down under that hood and from there they are taken off through underground passages and carried back to their dressing-rooms. Several people were drowned while they were experimenting with it, but now it's perfectly safe; I don't suppose those women mind it at all."