“Early yesterday morning Prof. Faber received a call, at the Girard House, from the renowned showman, P. T. Barnum, who is now on a visit to Philadelphia in pursuit of wonders for his great travelling show. Within two hours Prof. Faber had given notice to the Emperor of Austria of his forfeiture of £200 for not exhibiting his talking machine at the Vienna Exposition next summer, and a contract was signed by Mr. Barnum, agreeing to pay $20,000 for the services of Mr. and Mrs. Faber and their wonderful automaton talker during the tenting season of 1873. No more marvelous exhibition was ever seen in a travelling tent. It is the most wonderful achievement of ingenuity that this age of new inventions has yet witnessed. Although it looks no more like a talking machine than an old-fashioned weaver’s loom, or a modern sewing machine, it converses plainly and distinctly in all languages, giving every intonation of the human voice to extraordinary perfection. Mr. Barnum says that 10,000,000 of visitors will hear this wonderful wooden conversationalist during the coming Summer.”
It is amusing to witness the difference in men’s dispositions. I arrived in New York from New Orleans the night before New Year’s, just a week after the fire. I found my manager, Mr. Coup, and my son-in-law, Mr. Hurd, in rather low spirits. I laughed at them and called them my deacons, but begged them not to go into mourning.
“It’s astonishing how you can laugh when you know our museum building and all of our rare animals are burned up, and we cannot get more in time for the spring show,” drawled the lugubrious Coup, in an injured tone.
“If the fire had waited ten days till the holidays were over, we should have been $50,000 dollars better off,” chimed in the chop-fallen Hurd.
“If the skies had fallen we should have caught larks,” I replied; “but as the skies did not fall, let us be content with what is still left us.”
“As for you, Coup,” I continued, “you talk about what we cannot do; now, have I not told you often enough, the word ‘can’t’ is not in my dictionary?”
“But you can’t help the fire, can you?” retorted Coup.
“I shall not try, but I can restore all it has destroyed, and much more,” I replied; “and I will do it within three months at furthest.”
“That is easier said than done,” responded Coup with a sigh.
“Surely, Father, you don’t think we can get a new show upon the road before July, do you?” asked Mr. Hurd.