We went home and went to bed, both rather worn out with excitement. Next morning, just as we were dressed and going to get some breakfast, Sam Stacker came in, boiling. I don't know who could have told him, or whether he guessed at it from the way we looked the night before, but he evidently knew that something was up between us. So he sat right down and gave us a talking to. "Now, boys," says he, very earnestly, "you see how it is. You've made a tremendous hit with that there balloon feature. Last night when I came out and told that there whopper about the balloon bein' six miles in the air, and broached that benevolent scheme about your families, you ought to have heard the women scream; it done my heart good to hear 'em; two of 'em had to be carried out in convulsions, and it would be worth five thousand dollars' advertising if one of 'em was to die. Of course if you fellows quarrel, we'll have to drop the Valbella Brothers altogether, and that'll make a difference in your salaries. Besides, if you both get to making love to Jenny Hobbs, it will upset the whole business, and I'll just have to pay her the penalty in her contract, and get somebody else in her place. That'll be hard on her, poor girl, as she'll lose the best chance she's had yet of getting introduced to the public. I really had hoped you two fellows would have kept out of difficulties with each other," continued Sam, groaning. "I swear there's but one thing worse than quarreling in a theatrical company, and that is love-making. Blamed if I don't post a fine for any man in the company that's caught looking at a woman. Love, anyhow, is the durndest, foolishest business on top of the earth--no money in it and lots of trouble--and here you are two fellows actually risking a cut of twenty dollars a week for the sake of a petticoat! It's wicked, I say, and blasphemous, and it'll ruin the show business. And here you've gone and brought the whole infernal bother on my head, and I've been a good friend to you both; and--and it's a shame--and--" Sam stopped, almost crying. Neither one of us fully believed his threat about parting with Jenny, but it would clearly lead to trouble and loss of money on all sides if the Valbella Brothers came to grief. So it was tacitly understood that for the remainder of the season neither one of us should say a word to Jenny, and should go on as usual; and afterward each would try his luck with the pretty little dancer. Sam Stacker had intimated privately to me that if we left off our trapeze performance he and the rest of the company would construe it that I was afraid to risk it with Ted, considering the feeling between us, and I think he also managed to convey the same idea to Ted, and it had its effect on each. Sam swore that he intended to advise Jenny to marry the trombone, who had three wives in various stages of divorce, seven small children, and who alternated between the show business and that of a professional revivalist.