“It is,” I replied.
“Is this Mr. P. T. Barnum, the proprietor of the Museum?” she asked.
“The same,” was my answer.
“Why, really, Mr. Barnum,” she continued, “you look much like other common folks, after all.”
I remarked that I presumed I did; but I could not help it, and I hoped she was not disappointed at my appearance.
“Oh, no,” she said; “I suppose I have no right to be disappointed, but I have read and heard so much about you and your Museum that I was quite prepared to be astonished.”
I asked her if she had been through the establishment.
“I have,” she replied; “I came in immediately after breakfast; I have been here ever since, and, I can say I think with the Queen of Sheba, that ‘the half had not been told me.’ But, Mr. Barnum,” she, continued, “I have long felt a desire to see you; I wanted to attend when you lectured on temperance in Portland, but I had a severe cold and could not go out.”
“Do you like my collection as well as you do the one in the Boston Museum?” I asked.
“Dear me! Mr. Barnum,” said she, “I never went to any Museum before, nor to any place of amusement or public entertainment, excepting our school exhibitions; and I have sometimes felt that they even may be wicked, for some parts of the dialogues seemed frivolous; but I have heard so much of your ‘moral drama’ and the great good you are doing for the rising generation that I thought I must come here and see for myself.”