"They'll live for years yet, seeing how captivity has agreed with them," Collins elucidated. "If you invest in young lions you run the risk of having them pass out on you. And you can go right on pulling the trick off with what you've got. All you've got to do is to take my advice . . . " The master-trainer paused, and the lion man opened his mouth to speak. "Which will cost you," Collins went on deliberately, "say three hundred dollars." "Just for some advice?" the other asked quickly. "Which I guarantee will work. What would you have to pay for three new lions? Here's where you make money at three hundred. And it's the simplest of advice. I can tell it to you in three words, which is at the rate of a hundred dollars a word, and one of the words is 'the.'" "Too steep for me," the other objected. "I've got a make a living." "So have I," Collins assured him. "That's why I'm here. I'm a specialist, and you're paying a specialist's fee. You'll be as mad as a hornet when I tell you, it's that simple; and for the life of me I can't understand why you don't already know it." "And if it don't work?" was the dubious query. "If it don't work, you don't pay." "Well, shoot it along," the lion man surrendered. "_Wire the cage_," said Collins. At first the man could not comprehend; then the light began to break on him. "You mean . . . ?" "Just that," Collins nodded. "And nobody need be the wiser. Dry batteries will do it beautifully. You can install them nicely under the cage floor. All Isadora has to do when she's ready is to step on the button; and when the electricity shoots through their feet, if they don't go up in the air and rampage and roar around to beat the band, not only can you keep the three hundred, but I'll give you three hundred more. I know. I've seen it done, and it never misses fire. It's just as though they were dancing on a red-hot stove. Up they go, and every time they come down they burn their feet again. "But you'll have to put the juice into them slowly," Collins warned. "I'll show you how to do the wiring. Just a weak battery first, so as they can work up to it, and then stronger and stronger to the curtain. And they never get used to it. As long as they live they'll dance just as lively as the first time. What do you think of it?" "It's worth three hundred all right," the man admitted. "I wish I could make my money that easy." CHAPTER XXIX "Guess I'll have to wash my hands of him," Collins told Johnny. "I know Del Mar must have been right when he said he was the limit, but I can't get a clue to it." This followed upon a fight between Michael and Collins. Michael, more morose than ever, had become even crusty-tempered, and, scarcely with provocation at all, had attacked the man he hated, failing, as ever, to put his teeth into him, and receiving, in turn, a couple of smashing kicks under his jaw.