‘At last I joined a circus and came to England. I learnt fancy riding, and took a turn at clowning and the rope at times; but the low bar and single trapeze or rings was what I was wanted for most. You see, I had been nearly three years regularly at it by that time, and was beginning to make a mark. We started on a provincial tour, and pitched for a week at Norwich. I don’t notice the public much; but there was a girl there that came two or three nights’ running and sat close to the ring, that somehow struck my fancy. The last night but one, I caught myself looking round for her, as I sat on the bar before swinging off; and sure enough, there she was, just alongside the outer upright of my apparatus. Whether it was that that made me miss my tip or not, I can’t say, but that night I had a slip—nothing of any consequence; it marked my knee and shoulder next day; but I was able to finish my performance as if nothing had happened. In fact, the public would hardly have noticed it, but for the girl’s screeching out, “Oh, he’s killed!” and fainting. It made a bit of a fuss; but I liked her for it. Two days afterwards, when we were on the march at five o’clock in the morning, there she stood at the door of her father’s cottage, an old farm-place just out of the town, to see us go by. That’s my wife, sir! ‘Eighteen she was, when she married me, and I was twenty-two. But she didn’t begin to train till a year later; and six months after that we got our first double engagement. It was her idea, not mine. She suggested it. I said it was impossible. She insisted; and it was done. I get as many pounds weekly now in some places as I did quarter-dollars at starting. I’ve got a snug little bit of money in the bank, and I’ve got a snug little place of my own out at Wood Green; and soon, maybe, we shall give up business, and go in for agency or catering. And it’s all through her idea and pluck. And am I going to risk her life for the want of a few yards of safety-netting and the trouble of setting it, to please a manager or the public either?