Struggles and Triumphs · Chapter 20 (2/2)

We were all startled, for we knew the man and he seemed terribly in earnest. Knowing how most effectively to address him at such times, I exclaimed.

“Ridiculous! you would not do such a thing.”

“I swear I will,” was his savage reply. I expostulated with him, and several of our party joined me.

“Nobody will know it,” muttered the maniac, “and I shall be doing the world a favor.”

I endeavored to awaken him to a sense of the crime he contemplated, assuring him that it could not possibly benefit anyone, and that from the fact of the relations existing between the editor and myself, I should be the first to be accused of his murder. I implored him to go to his stateroom, and he finally did so, accompanied by some of the gentlemen of our party. I took pains to see that he was carefully watched that night, and, indeed, for several days, till he became calm again. He was a large, athletic man, quite able to pick up his namesake and drop him overboard. The matter was too serious for a joke, and we made little mention of it; but more than one of my party said then, and has said since, what I really believe to be true, that “James Gordon Bennett would have been drowned that night had it not been for P. T. Barnum.”

This incident has long been known to several of my intimate friends, and when Mr. Bennett learns the fact from this volume, he may possibly be somewhat mollified over his payment to me, fifteen years later, of $200,000 for the unexpired lease of my Museum, concerning which some particulars will be given anon.

In New Orleans the wharf was crowded by a great concourse of persons, as the steamer Falcon approached. Jenny Lind had enjoyed a month of quiet, and dreaded the excitement which she must now again encounter.

“Mr. Barnum, I am sure I can never get through that crowd,” said she, in despair.

“Leave that to me. Remain quiet for ten minutes, and there shall be no crowd here,” I replied.

Taking my daughter on my arm, she threw her veil over her face, and we descended the gangway to the dock. The crowd pressed around. I had beckoned for a carriage before leaving the ship.

“That’s Barnum, I know him,” called out several persons at the top of their voices.

“Open the way, if you please, for Mr. Barnum and Miss Lind!” cried Le Grand Smith over the railing of the ship, the deck of which he had just reached from the wharf.

“Don’t crowd her, if you please, gentlemen,” I exclaimed, and by dint of pushing, squeezing and coaxing, we reached the carriage, and drove for the Montalba buildings, where Miss Lind’s apartments had been prepared, and the whole crowd came following at our heels. In a few minutes afterwards, Jenny and her companion came quietly in a carriage, and were in the house before the ruse was discovered. In answer to incessant calls, she appeared a moment upon the balcony, waved her handkerchief, received three hearty cheers, and the crowd dispersed.

A poor blind boy, residing in the interior of Mississippi, a flute-player, and an ardent lover of music, visited New Orleans expressly to hear Jenny Lind. A subscription had been taken up among his neighbors to defray the expenses. This fact coming to the ears of Jenny, she sent for him, played and sang for him, gave him many words of joy and comfort, took him to her concerts, and sent him away considerably richer than he had ever been before.

A funny incident occurred at New Orleans. Our concerts were given in the St. Charles Theater, then managed by my good friend, the late Sol. Smith. In the open lots near the theater were exhibitions of mammoth hogs, five-footed horses, grizzly bears, and other animals.

A gentleman had a son about twelve years old, who had a wonderful ear for music. He could whistle or sing any tune after hearing it once. His father did not know nor care for a single note, but so anxious was he to please his son, that he paid thirty dollars for two tickets to the concert.

“I liked the music better than I expected,” said he to me the next day, “but my son was in raptures. He was so perfectly enchanted that he scarcely spoke the whole evening and I would on no account disturb his delightful reveries. When the concert was finished we came out of the theater. Not a word was spoken. I knew that my musical prodigy was happy among the clouds, and I said nothing. I could not help envying him his love of music, and considered my thirty dollars as nothing, compared to the bliss which it secured to him. Indeed, I was seriously thinking of taking him to the next concert, when he spoke. We were just passing the numerous shows upon the vacant lots. One of the signs attracted him, and he said, ‘Father, let us go in and see the big hog!’ The little scamp! I could have horsewhipped him!” said the father, who, loving a joke, could not help laughing at the ludicrous incident.

Some months afterwards, I was relating this story at my own table to several guests, among whom was a very matter-of-fact man who had not the faintest conception of humor. After the whole party had laughed heartily at the anecdote, my matter-of-fact friend gravely asked:

“And was it a very large hog, Mr. Barnum?”

I made arrangements with the captain of the splendid steamer Magnolia, of Louisville, to take our party as far as Cairo, the junction of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, stipulating for sufficient delay in Natchez, Mississippi, and in Memphis, Tennessee, to give a concert in each place. It was no unusual thing for me to charter a steamboat or a special train of cars for our party. With such an enterprise as that, time and comfort were paramount to money.

The time on board the steamer was whiled away in reading, viewing the scenery of the Mississippi, and other diversions. One day we had a pleasant musical festival in the ladies’ saloon for the gratification of the passengers, at which Jenny volunteered to sing without ceremony. It seemed to us she never sang so sweetly before. I also did my best to amuse my fellow passengers with anecdotes and the exhibition of sundry legerdemain tricks which I had been obliged to learn and use in the South years before and under far different circumstances than those which attended the performance now. Among other tricks, I caused a quarter of a dollar to disappear so mysteriously from beneath a card, that the mulatto barber on board came to the conclusion that I was in league with the devil.

The next morning I seated myself for the operation of shaving, and the colored gentleman ventured to dip into the mystery. “Beg pardon, Mr. Barnum, but I have heard a great deal about you, and I saw more than I wanted to see last night. Is it true that you have sold yourself to the devil, so that you can do what you’ve a mind to?”

“Oh, yes,” was my reply, “that is the bargain between us.”

“How long did you agree for?” was the question next in order.

“Only nine years,” said I. “I have had three of them already. Before the other six are out, I shall find a way to nonplus the old gentleman, and I have told him so to his face.”

At this avowal, a larger space of white than usual was seen in the darkey’s eyes, and he inquired, “Is it by this bargain that you get so much money?”

“Certainly. No matter who has money, nor where he keeps it, in his box or till, or anywhere about him, I have only to speak the words, and it comes.”

The shaving was completed in silence, but thought had been busy in the barber’s mind, and he embraced the speediest opportunity to transfer his bag of coin to the iron safe in charge of the clerk.

The movement did not escape me, and immediately a joke was afoot. I had barely time to make two or three details of arrangement with the clerk, and resume my seat in the cabin, ere the barber sought a second interview, bent on testing the alleged powers of Beelzebub’s colleague.

“Beg pardon, Mr. Barnum, but where is my money? Can you get it?”

“I do not want your money,” was the quiet answer. “It is safe.”

“Yes, I know it is safe⁠—ha! ha!⁠—it is in the iron safe in the clerk’s office⁠—safe enough from you!”

“It is not in the iron safe!” said I. This was said so quietly, yet positively, that the colored gentleman ran to the office, and inquired if all was safe. “All right,” said the clerk. “Open, and let me see,” replied the barber. The safe was unlocked and lo! the money was gone!

In mystified terror the loser applied to me for relief. “You will find the bag in your drawer,” said I, and there it was found!

Of course, I had a confederate, but the mystification of that mulatto was immense.