ARRIVAL AT ST. LOUIS—SURPRISING PROPOSITION OF MISS LIND’S SECRETARY—HOW THE MANAGER MANAGED—READINESS TO CANCEL THE CONTRACT—CONSULTATION WITH “UNCLE SOL.”—BARNUM NOT TO BE HIRED—A “JOKE”—TEMPERANCE LECTURE IN THE THEATRE—SOL. SMITH—A COMEDIAN, AUTHOR, AND LAWYER—UNIQUE DEDICATION—JENNY LIND’S CHARACTER AND CHARITIES—SHARP WORDS FROM THE WEST—SELFISH ADVISERS—MISS LIND’S GENEROUS IMPULSES—HER SIMPLE AND CHILDLIKE CHARACTER—CONFESSIONS OF A MANAGER—PRIVATE REPUTATION AND PUBLIC RENOWN—CHARACTER AS A STOCK IN TRADE—LE GRAND SMITH—MR. DOLBY—THE ANGELIC SIDE KEPT OUTSIDE—MY OWN SHARE IN THE PUBLIC BENEFITS—JUSTICE TO MISS LIND AND MYSELF.
ACCORDING to agreement, the “Magnolia” waited for us at Natchez and Memphis, and we gave profitable concerts at both places. The concert at Memphis was the sixtieth in the list since Miss Lind’s arrival in America, and the first concert in St. Louis would be the sixty-first. When we reached that city, on the morning of the day when our first concert was to be given, Miss Lind’s secretary came to me, commissioned, he said, by her, and announced that as sixty concerts had already taken place, she proposed to avail herself of one of the conditions of our contract, and cancel the engagement next morning. As this was the first intimation of the kind I had received, I was somewhat startled, though I assumed an entirely placid demeanor, and asked:
“Does Miss Lind authorize you to give me this notice?”
“I so understand it,” was the reply.
I immediately reflected that if our contract was thus suddenly cancelled, Miss Lind was bound to repay to me all I had paid her over the stipulated $1,000 for each concert, and a little calculation showed that the sum thus to be paid back was $77,000, since she had already received from me $137,000 for sixty concerts. In this view, I could not but think that this was a ruse of some of her advisers, and, possibly, that she might know nothing of the matter. So I told her secretary that I would see him again in an hour, and meanwhile I went to my old friend Mr. Sol. Smith for his legal and friendly advice.
I showed him my contract and told him how much I had been annoyed by the selfish and greedy hangers-on and advisers, legal and otherwise, of Jenny Lind. I talked to him about the “wheels within wheels” which moved this great musical enterprise, and asked and gladly accepted his advice, which mainly coincided with my own views of the situation. I then went back to the secretary and quietly told him that I was ready to settle with Miss Lind and to close the engagement.
“But,” said he, manifestly “taken aback,” “you have already advertised concerts in Louisville and Cincinnati, I believe.”
“Yes,” I replied; “but you may take my contracts for halls and printing off my hands at cost.” I further said that he was welcome to the assistance of my agent who had made these arrangements, and, moreover, that I would cheerfully give my own services to help them through with these concerts, thus giving them a good start “on their own hook.”
My liberality, which he acknowledged, emboldened him to make an extraordinary proposition:
“Now suppose,” he asked, “Miss Lind should wish to give some fifty concerts in this country, what would you charge as manager, per concert?”