"I'll have another shilling's worth," said the Scotchman.
"Ah! then I cannot accommodate you; but I can do better—give you a bad shilling for a good one."
On one occasion the curator of the Edinburgh Museum wrote down to him for the eleventh vertebra of the skeleton of a whale that he had, but which was wanting. By return of post Burton sent him up what he needed.
He had a marvellous memory—remembering all the multifarious items in his shop, though they were continually changing.
When the new Eddystone Lighthouse was erected, he wrote to Trinity House and offered £500 for Smeaton's lighthouse that had been taken down. This roused a storm of indignation in Plymouth, and ended in that town securing it for £1600, to be erected on the Hoe.
The town of Penryn possessed its old stocks, bearing date 1673. These he bought for £2, and sold them to a Devizes antiquary for a large sum. Then he purchased a haunted house—Trevethan Hall, in Falmouth—but as the ghost could not be turned into money, he pulled the house down and built on its site Mount Edgcumbe Terrace.
During many years a stream of tourists, walking, bicycling, motoring, has circulated round Cornwall, starting from Bideford, careering to the Land's End, and returning by the south coast to Plymouth, and hardly a tourist thought of visiting Falmouth without going to Burton's Curiosity Shop and making a purchase there. Indeed, he and his shop were some of the sights of Cornwall. He had by nature great ready wit, and a bluntness of manner which he cultivated, and which gave poignancy to dealings with him. But his bluntness, which was part of the stock-in-trade, was not infrequently carried too far, and became impertinence. He had a real love for his genuine curios, and parted with them reluctantly; and this he allowed to be seen. In this he was wholly unlike the ordinary dealer who presses his wares on the hesitating purchaser. When the present King, then Prince of Wales, visited Falmouth in 1887, the Prince having a cold sent Mr. Cavendish Bentinck to the Curiosity Shop to request that Mr. Burton would send a collection of what was most interesting in his shop for the Prince's inspection. Upon this he addressed the following letter to the Prince:—
"Respected Albert Edward.—I much regret to find you are indisposed. If I were to fetch to Kerrisvean a Pickford's wagon-load of samples it would be utterly impossible to convey the remotest idea of my ponderous conglomeration of curios; but if I could prevail upon Your Royal Highness to go through my shanty, I would give you local wit and humour which would throw you into a state of laughter, and there is every probability it would counteract your cold.—Yours until we meet in the next hotel,
"John Burton."
This, which he doubtless thought very smart, was mere insolence. In fact, he had not a large store of "local wit and humour," and mistook rudeness for fun. But he was often encouraged in this. A lady once entered his shop and said, "You've a rum lot of stuff here, old boy; how much do you ask for that pair of vases?"