And now comes a joke so huge and ludicrous that I laugh over it daily, although there is a serious aspect to it. Every shipment of curiosities that has arrived from abroad this winter has served to put my worthy Manager Coup in great agony.
“I tell you, Mr. Barnum, you are getting this show too big,” has been repeated by my perplexed manager a hundred times since New Year’s.
“Never mind,” I reply, “we ought to have a big show—the public expect it, and will appreciate it.”
“So here must go six thousand dollars more for a Giraffe wagon and the horses to draw it,” says Coup, “and this makes more than seventy additional horses that your importations since last fall have rendered necessary.”
“Well, friend Coup, we have the only Giraffe in America,” I replied.
“Yes, sir, that is all very well, but no country can support such an expensive show as you are putting on the road.”
And that is poor Coup’s doleful complaint continually.
But now comes a more serious side, and here is where the joke comes in. I had wintered about five hundred horses, and was preparing to add at least another hundred to my retinue. I induced my son-in-law, Mr. S. H. Hurd, to sell out his business, take stock in the show, and become its treasurer and assistant manager. Hurd is clear-headed, but he moves cautiously, and “looks before he leaps.” On a cold, clear morning in February, 1872, Mr. Coup, Mr. Hurd, and several of our leading assistants and counsellors called at my house. Their countenances were solemn, not to say lugubrious; their jaws seemed firmly set, and altogether I discovered something ominous in their appearance. I saw that there was solid business ahead, but I said with a smile:
“Gentlemen, I am right glad to see you. I confess you don’t look very jolly, but never mind, unbosom yourselves, and tell me what is up.”
Manager Coup opened the ball.