The Life of Phineas T. Barnum Part 18

"Don't crowd her, if you please, gentlemen," said Barnum, and so pus.h.i.+ng and squeezing they reached the carriage and drove to Miss Lind's apartments. A few minutes later Jenny and her companion came quietly in a carriage and were in the house before the ruse was discovered. In answer to the calls of the crowd she appeared on the balcony, and bowed to the throng, which gave her three cheers and dispersed.

A very funny incident occurred in New Orleans. Next to the theatre where the concerts were given, was an exhibition in the large open lots of mammoth hogs, 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 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 theatre. 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 pa.s.sing 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 horse-whipped him!' said the father, who loving a joke, could not help laughing at the ludicrous incident.

The party took pa.s.sage to Cairo, Illinois, in the beautiful river steamer "Magnolia." They had made arrangements with the captain to delay in Natchez and in Memphis where concerts were given.

The time on board the steamer was pleasantly spent in reading and watching the scenery. One day they had a musicale in the ladies'

cabin for the gratification of the pa.s.sengers, at which Miss Lind volunteered to sing. Barnum amused the pa.s.sengers with his inexhaustible fund of anecdotes and stories, and the tricks of legerdemain, which he had learned and used in the South under rather different circ.u.mstances. Among other tricks, he made a silver piece disappear so mysteriously that the negro barber who witnessed the feat, came to the conclusion that the great man must be in league with the devil. "The next morning," says Mr.

Barnum, "I seated myself in the barber's chair and the darkey began to talk:

" '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 s.p.a.ce 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!

"His curiosity was still great. 'Please do another trick,' said he.

" 'Very well,' I replied, 'stand perfectly still.'

"He did so, and I commenced muttering some mysterious words, as if performing an incantation.

" 'What are you doing?' said the barber.

" 'I am changing you into a black cat,' I replied, 'but don't be afraid; I will change you back again, if I don't forget the words to do it with.'

"This was too much for the terrified darkey; with an awful screech he rushed to the side of the boat resolved to drown rather than undergo such a transformation.

"He was captured and brought back to me, when I dispelled his fright by explaining the way in which I had tricked him. Relieved and rea.s.sured, he clapped his hands and executed an impromtu jig, exclaiming, 'Ha! ha! when I get back to New Orleans won't I come de Barnum ober dem n.i.g.g.e.rs!' "

CHAPTER XX. THE TRIALS OF AN IMPRESSARIO.

ST. LOUIS--THE SECRETARY'S LITTLE GAME--LEGAL ADVICE--SMOOTH WATERS AGAIN--BARNUM'S EFFORTS APPRECIATED--AN EXTRAVAGANT ENCONIUM.

The concerts at Natchez and Memphis were extremely successful.

The sixty-first concert was given in St. Louis, and on the morning of their arrival in the city Miss Lind's secretary came to Mr. Barnum, commissioned, as he claimed, by the singer, and told the Manager that as sixty concerts had already been given, Miss Lind proposed to avail herself of one of the conditions of the contract and cancel the engagement next morning. Much startled by this sudden complication, but outwardly undisturbed, Barnum asked if Miss Lind had authorized the notice. "I so understand it," was the secretary's reply. Thinking that it might be another scheme of her advisers and that Miss Lind herself might possibly know nothing of it, Barnum told the secretary that he would see him again in an hour. He then proceeded to his old friend Sol Smith for legal advice. They went over the contract together, Barnum telling his friend of the annoyances he had suffered from Miss Lind's advisers, and they both agreed that if she broke the contract thus suddenly, she was bound to pay back all that she had received over the stipulated $1000, for each concert. As she had been paid $137,000, for sixty concerts, this extra money amounted to something like $77,000.

Barnum then went back to the secretary and told him that he was ready to settle with Miss Lind and to close the engagement.

"But," said he, evidently much surprised, "you have already advertised concerts in Louisville and Cincinnati, have you not?"

"Yes," answered Barnum calmly, "but you may take the contracts for halls and printing off my hands at cost." He further offered the a.s.sistance of his agent and his own personal services to give Miss Lind a good start on her own account.

The secretary emboldened by this liberality then made a proposition so extraordinary that Barnum at once saw that Miss Lind could have had nothing to do with the scheme.

"Now suppose," he asked, "Miss Lind should wish to give some fifty concerts in this country, what would you charge as manager?"

"A million dollars a concert," answered Barnum promptly; then he added, "Now see here; I don't believe Miss Lind has authorized you to make this proposition. If she has, just bring me a line to that effect, over her own signature, and her check for the amount due me by the terms of our contract, some $77,000, and we will close our business connection at once."

"But why not make a new arrangement," persisted the secretary, "for fifty more concerts, by which Miss Lind will pay you liberally, say $1,000 a concert?"

"For the simple reason that I hired Miss Lind, and not she me,"

replied Barnum, "and because I ought never to take a farthing less for my risk and trouble than the contract gives me. I have voluntarily given Miss Lind more than twice as much as I originally contracted to give her, or as she expected to receive when she engaged with me. Now if she is not satisfied I wish to settle instantly and finally. If you do not bring me her decision to-day, I shall ask her for it in the morning."

The next morning Barnum asked him again for the written communication from Miss Lind; the secretary replied that it was all a "joke," and that he merely wanted to see what the manager would say to the proposition. He begged that nothing would be said to Miss Lind concerning it. So it is altogether likely that she knew nothing of it. The four concerts at St. Louis were given and the program as arranged for the other cities was carried out, with no more troublous incidents occurring.

To show that Barnum's efforts as manager of the Jenny Lind enterprise were appreciated, we copy the dedication of Sol Smith's Autobiography published in 1854. Smith was one of the characters of his time, being celebrated as a comedian, an author, a manager and a lawyer:

"TO PHINEAS T. BARNUM, PROPRIETOR OF THE AMERICAN MUSEUM, ETC.

"Great Impressario. Whilst you were engaged in your grand Jenny Lind speculation, the following conundrum went the rounds of the American newspapers:

" 'Why is it that Jenny Lind and Barnum will never fall out?'

Answer: 'Because he is always for-getting, and she is always for-giving.'

"I have never asked you the question directly, whether you, Mr.

Barnum, started that conundrum, or not; but I strongly suspect that you did. At all events, I noticed that your whole policy was concentrated into one idea--to make an angel of Jenny, and depreciate yourself in contrast.

"You may remember that in this city (St. Louis), I acted in one instance as your 'legal adviser,' and as such, necessarily became acquainted with all the particulars of your contract with the so-called Swedish Nightingale, as well as the various modifications claimed by that charitable lady, and submitted to by you after her arrival in this country; which modifications (I suppose it need no longer be a secret) secured to her--besides the original stipulation of one thousand dollars for every concert, attendants, carriages, a.s.sistant artists, and a pompous and extravagant retinue, fit (only) for a European princess--one-half of the profits of each performance. You may also remember the legal advice I gave you on the occasion referred to, and the salutary effect of your following it. You must remember the extravagant joy you felt afterwards, in Philadelphia, when the 'Angel' made up her mind to avail herself of one of the stipulations in her contract, to break off at the end of a hundred nights, and even bought out seven of that hundred--supposing that she could go on without your aid as well as with it. And you cannot but remember, how, like a rocket-stick she dropped, when your business connection with her ended, and how she 'fizzed out' the remainder of her concert nights in this part of the world, and soon afterwards retired to her domestic blissitude in Sweden.

"You know, Mr. Barnum, if you would only tell, which of the two it was that was 'for-getting,' and which 'for-giving;' and you also know who actually gave the larger portion of those sums which you heralded to the world as the sole gifts of the 'divine Jenny.'