Suddenly, something very extraordinary happened. The trodden grass at his feet shimmered with a pale brightness. Clearly he saw a couple of cigarette butts in the grass. It was as if some one had spilled this brightness on the ground. Then it was gone. And there was only a dim light where the candles sputtered on the makeshift table. That was a strange occurrence. He stepped out of the tent and there was the patch of brightness near the Ford sedan. How plainly he could read the flaunting words on the spare tire, THREE HUNDRED FOOT DIVE. Then suddenly, the square tank and the foot of the dizzy ladder were bathed in light. A long, dusty column was poking around as if it had lost something. The sedan was again illuminated. The bright patch moved under the tent and painted an area of the canvas golden. Was it looking for Diving Denniver, the wonder of two continents, to come forth and make his three hundred foot dive? It found the tank and the ladder again and made them glowing and resplendent. Then there was wafted on the air the robust sound of the band playing real music. It drowned the tin-pan whining of the merry-go-round and sent its rousing strains over the fence which bore the forbidding sign. What a martial tumult! It made the cane ringers pause, sent the carriers of kewpie dolls to a point of vantage, and left the five-legged calf forlorn and alone. Louder and louder it sent forth its rousing melody. Come take a ride o’er the clouds with me Up in the air mid the stars. Hervey Willetts stood petrified. He was in the hands of the gods--or the devils. I have sometimes wondered if he ever, _ever_ thought. Behind every act, good or bad, there is some kind of intention. And I have told you about boys whose intentions were not of the best. But what of this boy? There was just never anything behind his acts. No boy could catch him. Yet the band and the waiting light caught him. And what did they do to him? The light seemed to be waiting for him, there at the foot of the ladder. All else was darkness. Only the area of brightness bathing the ladder and the big tank with its metal corners. It seemed to say, “Come, I am going up with you.” And, God help him, he went to it as a moth flies to a flame. When he had ascended a few feet, he remembered that Diving Denniver went up very slowly seeming to test each rung. He knew now that this had been for effect and to make the climb seem long. For the rungs were sound and strong. Also the performer had occasionally extended his arm. The substitute realized that there had been good reason for that, for the breeze was more brisk as he ascended and he knew that the diver had thus held out his hand by way of keeping tabs on the breeze. The small tank permitted no divergence from the straight descent. To land outside it----