"Call me a fool if I don't earn the $500!" exclaimed Adams, with a triumphant laugh.
The "show" started off in a few days, and at the end of a fortnight Barnum met it at Hartford, Connecticut.
"Well" said he, "Adams, you seem to stand it pretty well. I hope you and your wife are comfortable?"
"Yes," he replied with a laugh; "and you may as well try to be comfortable, too, for your $500 is a goner."
"All right," Barnum replied, "I hope you will grow better every day."
But the case was hopeless. Adams was dying. When Barnum met him three weeks later at New Bedford his eyes were glassy and his hands trembling, but his courage and will were strong as ever.
"This hot weather tells on me," he said, "but I'll last the ten weeks and more, and get your $500."
Barnum urged him to quit work, to take half of the $500 and go home. But, no. He would not listen to it. And he did actually serve through the whole ten weeks, and got the $500; remarking, as he pocketed the cash,
"Barnum, it's too bad you're a teetotaler, for I'd like to stand treat with you on this."
When Adams set out on this last tour, Barnum had a fine new hunting-suit made of beaver-skins. He had procured it for Herr Driesbach, the animal tamer, whom he had engaged to take Adams' place whenever the latter should give out. Adams had asked him to loan him the suit, to wear occasionally when he had great audiences, as his own suit was badly worn. Barnum did so; and at the end of the engagement, as he received the $500, Adams said: