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It you want to spend an amusing evening, settle yourself comfortably and start looking over Joe Cook's trophy room. The rest of the rooms in the house are just as dizzy.
vision become a reality. Fate helped him, of course. And Fate demanded a costly recompense. Joe forfeited his wife.
Let's go back thirty years ... far from Sleepless Hollow (the name of Joe's famous home) to Evansville, Indiana. A small, fair lad who looks about seven and really is ten. is beaming with pride and pleasure. His friends, all taller than he, mill around him. He had just given the mid-western town its first local circus. To be sure, it wouldn't have offered any serious competition to Barnum and Bailey. Its arena was an empty barn. It boasted no Broadway clowns, just eager kids from the neighborhood, who thrilled at the first touch of grease paint and powder. It was a good enough circus for these simple folk, who were amazed at the ingenuity of this little boy. He was the whole works : ringmaster, clown, bareback rider, and acrobat, all rolled into one. The hay loft was packed with the audience, ages from six to sixty. Even the pink lemonade tasted good.
\A/HEN the grand finale was over, with Joe high above * * the crowd, on an improvised slack wire, he mustered his cheering associates and made some startling predictions, as he struggled to maintain his equilibrium.
"I'm gonna give bigger 'n' better shows than this one, in bigger 'n' better cities. I'm gonna make a million dollars, and then ..."
"And then what. Joey?" shouted his worshipping brother, Leo, eyes popping.
"Then I'm gonna build me a great house on a blue lake, with boats and trains, and give swell parties !" His ambition got the better of his balance, and he fell into a convenient pile of hay.
"Now that you're down to earth, Joey," called out an old man, who had been sitting in front, "you won't be having such high falutin' ideas."
"You just wait and see," answered Joe.
The old man's eyes twinkled. They were wise eyes that had seen many things. Slowly he said, emphasizing every word of his advice: "Remember, son, you always gotta give a lot to get a lot."
Success unlocked the key to young Joe's talents. Diligently he practised his stunts. He got every available joke book. Then one summer, a sleek medicine man came to town. He needed an assistant that could, when needed, juggle, while the professor (they always called these shysters professors) eulogized the miracles of his patent remedy.
Joe couldn't juggle, so he faked a picture of himself juggling thirteen Indian cluSs, mailed it to the fakir, and got the job. When the time came for him to juggle, he told jokes instead. The attentive farmers laughed and the professor sold his medicine. When the evasive quack, who was always two jumps ahead of town constables, concluded his tour of hundreds of tiny hamlets throughout the country, his versatile Joe-of-all-trades asked to be paid. The professor had no money, so they compromised. Joe, none the worse for his (Continued on page °0)
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