Tristan's vaudeville scheme was not as easily realized as said. The first manager to whom we applied was stubbornly skeptical in spite of Tristan's appearance standing upside down in stilts heavily weighted at the ground ends; and even after his resistance was broken down in a manner which left him gasping and a little woozy, began to reason unfavorably in a hard-headed way. Audiences, he explained, were off levitation acts. Too old. No matter what you did, they'd lay it to concealed wires, and yawn. Even if you called a committee from the audience, the committee itself would merely be sore at not being able to solve the trick; the audience would consider the committee a fake or merely dumb. And all that would take too much time for an act of that kind. "Oh, yeh, I know! It's got me goin', all right. But I can't think like me about this sorta thing. I got to think like the audience does--or go outa business!" After which solid but unprofitable lesson in psychology, we dropped the last vestige of pride and tried a circus sideshow. But the results were similar. "Nah, the rubes don't wear celluloid collars any more. Ya can't slip any wire tricks over on 'em!" "But he can do this in a big topless tent, or even out in an open field, if you like." "Nope--steel rods run up the middle of a rope has been done before." "Steel rods in a rope which the people see uncoil from the ground in front of their eyes?" "Well, they'd think of somethin' else, then. I'm tellin' ya, it won't go! Sure, people like to be fooled, but they want it to be done _right_!" "Yes!" I sneered. "And a hell of a lot of people have fooled themselves _right_ about this matter, too!" He looked at me curiously. "Say, have ya really got somethin' up y'r sleeve?" "You'd be surprised!" Thus he grudgingly gave us a chance for a tryout; and he was surprised indeed. But on thinking it over, he decided like the vaudeville man. "Listen!" said Tristan suddenly, in a voice of desperation. "I'll do a parachute jump into the sky, and land on an airplane!" "Tristan!" shrieked Alice, in horror. The circus man nearly lost his cigar, then bit it in two. "Sa-ay--what the--I'll call that right now! I'll get ya the plane and chute if y'll put up a deposit to cover the cost. If ya do it, we'll have the best money in the tents; if ya don't, I keep the money!" "If I don't," said Tristan distinctly, "I'll have not the slightest need for the money." But the airplane idea was out; we could think of no way for him to make the landing on such a swiftly-moving vehicle. Again Alice solved it. "If you absolutely must break my heart and put me in a sanitarium," she sobbed, "get a blimp!" Of course! And that is what we did--on the first attempt coming unpleasantly close to doing just that to Alice. * * * * *