The Life of Phineas T. Barnum Part 24

One consequential little lawyer commenced his examination in behalf of a note-shaver, who held a thousand dollar note which he had bought for seven hundred. After the oath had been administered, he arranged his pen, ink, and paper, and in a loud tone of voice asked:

"What is your name, sir?"

The answer was given, and the next question delivered in a louder, more peremptory tone was:

"What is your business?"

"Attending bar," answered Barnum.

"Attending bar!" exclaimed the lawyer; "attending bar! Why, I thought you were a teetotaler."

"So I am," declared the witness.

"And yet, sir, you have the audacity to a.s.sert that you peddle rum all day, and drink none yourself?"

"That is not a relevant question," said Barnum.

"I will appeal to his Honor the Judge if you don't answer it instantly," said the lawyer, gleefully.

"Very well; I do attend bar, and yet never drink intoxicating liquors."

"Where do you attend bar, and for whom?" pursued the lawyer.

"I attend the bar of this court nearly every day, for the benefit of two-penny lawyers and their greedy clients," replied the disgusted Barnum.

On another occasion a young lawyer who had been pushing his inquiries to a great length, said in a half-laughing tone of apology:

"You see, Mr. Barnum, I am searching after the small thing; I am willing to take even the crumbs that fall from the rich man's table."

"Which are you, then, Lazarus or one of the dogs?" asked Barnum, wearily.

"I guess a blood-hound would not smell out much on this trial,"

returned the lawyer, good-naturedly, adding that he had no more questions to ask.

On account of Mrs. Barnum's continued ill-health, the family spent the summer in a farm-house at Westhampton, Long Island. The farm lay close to the ocean, and the place was very cool and delightful. The respite from active life, and the annoyance attendant to his financial troubles was of the greatest benefit to Mr. Barnum, who spent the time shooting, fishing, and driving.

One morning they discovered that the waves had thrown up on the beach a young black whale, nearly twelve feet long. The animal was dead, but still hard and fresh, and Barnum bought it for a few dollars from the man who claimed it by right of discovery. He sent it at once to the Museum, where it was exhibited in a huge refrigerator for a few days, where crowds came to see it. The managers very properly gave Barnum a share of the profits, which amounted to a sum sufficient to pay the board-bill of the family for the entire season.

"Well," said the amazed landlord, when he heard of it, "you do beat all for luck. Here you come and board for four months with your family, and when the time is nearly up and you're getting ready to leave, out rolls a big black whale on our beach, a thing never heard of before in this vicinity, and you take that whale and pay your board-bill with it!"

Shortly after his return to New York an unforeseen event occurred which Barnum realized was likely to extricate him from his difficulties.

The new city which had led him into ruin now promised to be his redemption.

The now gigantic Wheeler & Wilson Sewing-Machine Company was then doing a comparatively small yet rapidly growing business at Watertown, Connecticut. The Terroy & Barnum clock factory was standing idle, almost worthless, in East Bridgeport, and Wheeler & Wilson saw in the empty building, the situation, the ease of communication with New York, and other advantages, precisely what they wanted, provided they could procure the premises at a rate which would compensate them for the expense and trouble of removing their establishment from Watertown. The clock factory was sold for a trifle and the wheeler & Wilson Company moved into it and speedily enlarged it.

This important occurrence gave Barnum great hope for the increased value of the land belonging to his estate. And moreover Mr. Wheeler offered him a loan of $5,000 without security, which sum Barnum accepted, and devoted it, together with Mrs. Barnum's money, to purchasing the East Bridgeport property at the a.s.signees' sale and also taking up such clock notes as could be purchased at a reasonable percentage. Though this new plan did eventually result in putting more money in his pocket than the Jerome complication had taken out, yet the process was a slow one. But Barnum concluded to let it work itself out, and meanwhile, with the idea of doing something to help out the acc.u.mulation and even saving something to add to the amount, he made up his mind to go to Europe again.

He set sail in 1857, taking with him Tom Thumb and little Cordelia Howard, who had attained celebrity for her artistic rendering of juvenile characters,

CHAPTER XXVII. A PROSPEROUS EXILE.

HIS SUCCESSFUL PUPIL--MAKING MANY FRIENDS IN LONDON--ACQUAINTANCE WITH THACKERAY--A COMEDY OF ERRORS IN A GERMAN CUSTOM HOUSE--ARISTOCRATIC PATRONAGE AT FASHIONABLE RESORTS--BARNUM'S IMPRESSIONS OF HOLLAND AND THE DUTCH.

Years ago Barnum had known Albert Smith in London as a dentist, literary "hack," occasional writer for Punch and various magazines, etc., not achieving notable success in any of these undertakings. He now found him the most eminent and successful showman in the city, occupying Barnum's old quarters in Egyptian Hall. The chief attraction of his show was a panorama of Mont Blanc, accompanying which he gave a lecture, descriptive of the mountain and relating his own experiences in climbing it. When Barnum called upon him he found him just as una.s.suming and cordial as ever; he was forthwith entered on the free list at all of Smith's entertainments, and the two often dined together at the Garrick Club.

The first time Barnum attended Smith's exhibition, the latter gave him a sly wink from the stage at the moment of his describing a scene in the golden chamber of St. Ursula's church in Cologne, where the old s.e.xton narrating the story of the ashes and bones to the eleven thousand innocent virgins, who, according to tradition, were sacrificed on a certain occasion. One of the characters whom he pretended to have met several times on his trip to Mont Blanc, was a Yankee, whom he named "Phineas Cutecraft." The wink came at the time he introduced Phineas in the Cologne church, and made him say at the end of the s.e.xton's story about the virgins' bones:

"Old fellow, what will you take for that hull lot of bones? I want them for my museum in America!"

When the question had been interpreted to the old German, he exclaimed in horror, according to Albert Smith:

"Mine Gott! it is impossible! We will never sell the virgins'

bones!"

"Never mind," replied Phineas Cutecraft, "I'll send another lot of bones to my museum, swear mine are the real bones of the Virgins of Cologne, and burst up your show!"

This always excited the heartiest laughter; but Mr. Smith knew very well that Barnum would at once recognize it as a paraphrase of the scene wherein they, too, had figured in 1844, at the porter's lodge of Warwick Castle. "In the course of the entertainment," says Barnum, "I found he had woven in numerous anecdotes I had told him at that time, and many incidents of our excursion were also travestied and made to contribute to the interest of his description of the ascent of Mont Blanc."

When they dined together at the club that day, Smith introduced Barnum to several of his acquaintances as his teacher in the show business. He also remarked to Barnum that he must have recognized as old friends many of the incidents and jokes in the lecture.

Barnum replied that he did. "Well," said Smith, "of course you as a showman, know very well that, to win popular success. we have to appropriate and adapt to our uses everything of the sort that we can get hold of."

By thus engrafting his various experiences upon this Mont Blanc entertainment, Albert Smith succeeded in serving up a salmagundi feast which was relished alike by royal and less distinguished palates.

When William Makepeace Thackeray first visited this country, he brought a letter of introduction to Barnum, from Albert Smith, and called on the showman at his New York museum. He spent an hour or more there, asking much advice of Barnum in regard to the management of the course of lectures on "The English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century," which he proposed to deliver, as he did afterwards, with very great success, in the princ.i.p.al cities of the Union. Barnum gave him the best advice he could as to management, and the cities he ought to visit, for which he was very grateful, and he called on Barnum whenever he was in New York. Barnum also saw him repeatedly when he came to America the second time with his lectures on "The Four Georges," which, it will be remembered, he delivered in the United States in the season of 1855-56, before he read them to audiences in Great Britain. Barnum's relations with this great novelist were cordial and intimate; and now, when he called upon him, in 1857, at his own house, Thackeray grasped him heartily by the hand, and said:

"Mr. Barnum, I admire you more than ever I have read the accounts in the papers of the examinations you underwent in New York courts; and the positive pluck you exhibit under your pecuniary embarra.s.sments is worthy of all praise. You would never have received credit for the philosophy you manifest if these financial misfortunes had not overtaken you."

Barnum thanked him for his compliment, and he continued:

"But tell me, Barnum, are you really in need of present a.s.sistance? For if you are you must be helped."

"Not in the least," the showman replied, laughing "I need more money in order to get out of bankruptcy, and I intend to earn it; but so far as daily bread is concerned, I am quite at ease, for my wife is worth L30,000 or L40,000."

"Is it possible!??" he exclaimed, with evident delight; "well, now, you have lost all my sympathy; why, that is more than I ever expect to be worth; I shall be sorry for you no more."

During his stay in London, Barnum met Thackeray several times, and on one occasion dined with him. He repeatedly expressed his obligations to Barnum for the advice and a.s.sistance he had given him on the occasion of his first lecturing visit to the United States.

Soon after Barnum arrived in London he was visited by Mr. Otto Goldschmidt, who had married Jenny Lind. They were then living in Dresden, but Madame Goldschmidt had insisted on his hurrying over to England to see her old manager, and ascertain whether he really was in want. Barnum a.s.sured him that he was getting on comfortably, though he had to exercise economy, and that his family would presently come over and live with him in London.

Goldschmidt urged him to come to Dresden to live. "It is much cheaper living there," he said, "and my wife will be so glad to find a suitable house for you." But Barnum declined the offer.

His business prospects would be better in London than in Dresden.

Barnum's old friends, Julius Benedict and Signor Belletti, also called on him frequently, and made him feel much at home. Among others whom he met in London, some of them quite frequently at dinners, were Mr. George Augustus Sala, Mr. Edmund Yates, Mr.

Horace Mayhew, Mr. Alfred Bunn, Mr Lumley, of Her Majesty's Theatre; Mr. Buckstone; of the Haymarket; Mr. Charles Kean, our princely countryman; Mr. George Peabody, Mr. J. M. Morris, the manager, Mr. Bates, of Baring Brothers & Co.; Mr. Oxenford, dramatic critic of the London Times, Dr. Ballard, the American dentist, and many other eminent persons.

He had numerous offers from professional friends on both sides of the Atlantic, who supposed him to be in need of employment. Mr.

Barney Williams, who had not then acted in England, proposed, in the kindest manner, to make him his agent for a tour through Great Britain, and to give him one-third of the profits which he and Mrs. Williams might make by their acting. Mr. Pettengill, of New York, the newspaper advertising agent, offered him the fine salary of $10,000 a year to transact business for him in Great Britain. He wrote: "When you failed in consequence of the Jerome clock notes, I felt that your creditors were dealing hard with you; that they should have let you up and give you a chance, and they would have fared better, and I wish I was a creditor, so as to show what I would do." These offers, both from Mr. Williams and Mr. Pettengill, Barnum felt obliged to decline.