"Carn't say," responded John. "You're pooty bad. There's nuth'n' in this country that'll cure you. Hi'll go hout to Hingland, if you say so, and hi can git somethin' there that'll 'elp you. It ar'n't to be 'ad in Ameriky, though."
"Sho!" exclaimed Barnum; "you don't say so! Do you think, John, that we could find something in England that would knock 'em, here?"
"Nothing else," replied John. "Hi know where they keep 'em." (John was raised in Great Britain.)
"But, John," persisted Phineas, "there's Burnham, you know, of Boston. They say he has the best poultry in the world; and I've no doubt of it, between you and I."
"Fudge!" exclaimed John; "Burn'am's a very clever fellow, hi've no manner o' doubt, and hi won't say nuth'n' ag'inst 'im; but 'ee's the wust 'umbug you ever see, since you 'ad breath. 'Ee don't know the dif'rence 'tween a Shanghi and a Cochin-Chiny—an' never did. 'Ee's a hum, 'is Burn'am. Don't go near 'im, unless you want the skin shaved hoff o' yer knuckles, clean."
"Well, John," said the show-man, "something must be done. I've got the fever, bad, I'm afraid, as you suggest; and it must be fed. What can you do for me?"
John thought the matter over, and it was finally agreed, as there were no good fowls in America (according to John's notions), that he should be deputized by Phineas to proceed to "Hingland," and procure some genuine (that is, pure) stock, for the coops at Iranistan, at the liberal show-man's expense! A capital recipe, this, for Barnum's disease, as well as for John's own benefit.
But Phineas isn't taken down easy, though they do occasionally "fetch him." And so he hesitated. He thought the matter over a while, and finally said to his friend, one day,
"John, I've got it!"
"'Ave you?" says John.