Joe remembered that now. It would be easier to keep on with the professor's show, for the work was all planned out for him, and he had but to fulfil certain engagements. Then, too, he was getting to be expert in the tricks. "But I want to get on in life," reasoned Joe. "Forty dollars a week is more than I'm getting now, nor will I stick at that point in the circus. It will be hard work, but I can stand it." He had almost made up his mind. He decided he would go back and acquaint the professor with his decision. As Joe was passing a sort of hotel in a poor section of the town he almost ran into, or, rather, was himself almost run into by a man who emerged from the place quickly but unsteadily. Joe was about to pass on with a muttered apology, though he did not feel the collision to be his fault, when the man angrily demanded: "What's the matter with you, anyhow? Why don't you look where you're going?" "I tried to," said Joe, mildly enough. "Hope I didn't hurt you." "Well, you banged me hard enough!" The man seemed a little more mollified now. Joe was at once struck by something familiar in his voice and his looks. He took a second glance and in an instant he recognized the man as one of the circus trapeze performers he had seen the day he went to the big tent, or "main top," of Sampson Brothers' Circus to watch the professionals at their practice. The man was one of the troupe known as the "Lascalla Brothers," though the relationship was assumed, rather than real. Joe gave a start of astonishment as he sensed the recognition. He was also surprised at the great change in the man. When Joe had first seen him, a few months before, the performer had been a straight, lithe specimen of manhood, intent, at the moment when Joe met him, on seeing that his trapeze ropes were securely fastened. Now the man looked and acted like a tramp. He was dirty and ragged, and his face bore evidences of dissipation. He leered at Joe, and then something in our hero's face seemed to hold his attention. "What are you looking at me that way for, young fellow?" he demanded. "Do you know me?" "No, not exactly," was the answer. "But I've seen you." "Well, you're not the only one," was the retort. "A good many thousand people have seen me on the circus trapeze. And I'd be there to-day, doing my act, if it hadn't been for that mean Jim Tracy. He fired me, Jim did--said he was going to get some one for the act who could stay sober. Huh? I'm sober enough for anybody, and I took only a little drink because I was sick. Even at that I can beat anybody on the high bar. But he sacked me. Never mind! I'll get even with him, and if he puts anybody in my place--well, that fellow'd better look out, that's all!" The man seemed turning ugly, and Joe was glad the fellow had not connected him with the youth who had paid a brief visit to the trapeze tent that day, months before.