‘All right,’ said Mr Barnum; and the trombone did frightful execution through the week. Saturday came, and with it Mr Green for his salary, instead of drawing which, he received a paper on which was written: ‘Mr Green to Mr P. T. Barnum.—To playing the trombone on his Balcony one week, twenty-five dollars.’ The recipient smiled.
‘It’s all right, isn’t it?’ asked Mr Barnum.
‘Why,’ said the musician, ‘you’ve made an odd mistake: you’ve made me the debtor instead of you.’
‘No mistake at all,’ said Barnum. ‘You see, this is how it is. There are a good many gentlemen in this city fond of practising on brass instruments; but they cannot do so at home because of their neighbours’ objections. So I find them room on my Balcony during so many hours a day, where the street is so noisy that it does no harm; and they give me so much a week for my trouble in keeping the organisation complete. You don’t think me such a fool as to pay such a wretched lot of players surely? However, as you seem to have been honestly mistaken, you can pay me ten dollars this week; but hereafter I can make no reduction.’ There was a vacancy in the Balcony Band the following Monday.
We take it that the shrewd showman was not quite so much astonished at the way his advertisement was misconstrued, as one A. B., who, recognising a long-lost friend in the stalls of the theatre, but unable to catch his eye, notified in the ‘agony’ column of the Times: ‘If the gentleman who was in the stalls at the —— Theatre on the evening of the 5th inst. will write to the following address, he will hear from the Box above;’ and received nearly a score of replies. The first he opened, ran: ‘My dear Madam—I cannot express to you how delighted I felt this morning on taking up the Times and reading your advertisement. How exceedingly kind and thoughtful of you to communicate with me in this way. Pray, let me know as quickly as possible when and where I may see you. I am burning with impatience to speak to you. Can we meet this evening? Do send me a note, or better still, a telegram, here, on receipt of this.—Yours Most Affectionately.’ The second letter, commencing ‘Mia Carissima,’ suggested a meeting at the Duke of York’s Column, and ended: ‘Good-bye, pet. Yours ever and a day—The Gentleman in the Stalls.’ A third deluded mortal declared he had not slept a wink after seeing A. B. at the theatre. ‘You know Who’ informed the ‘Dearest Being,’ whose himage he still saw before him, that his passion was much too much for ordinary words to tell; that after wandering all his life, mixing in revolutions, &c., he should like to stop at last, and finished somewhat prosaically with: ‘It’s just four o’clock. All are in bed and fast asleap. Good-night. I’m not married.’ And so on with a batch of other aspirants, who evidently deemed the anonymous occupant of the Box nothing short of an heiress.
Many an unpremeditated sell has been perpetrated from inability to resist sudden temptation. One of the judges of the Supreme Court of New York state, visiting the Centennial Exhibition, sat down in a quiet corner apart from the others, to listen to a great cornet-player, and as was his wont in court, drew his gray coat about his head and ears as a protection against possible draughts. His motionless figure soon attracted attention; and the whisper ran that it was the statue of some wonderful character. The judge’s sister wickedly told those near her that they were gazing at the effigy of an Aztec priest from Mexico. The information passed from mouth to mouth, and some hundreds of people were drawn to the spot, to disperse somewhat sheepishly when the object of their curiosity, having had enough of the cornet, readjusted his coat and rose to go.
A good story is told of one Boggs, whose impertinent curiosity was proverbial throughout the country that owned him. He was on one occasion travelling on the Little Miami Railroad alongside a solemn-looking man, who persisted in looking out of window and took no heed of Boggs’ endeavours to enliven the journey with a little conversation. At last the brakeman or guard came round with some water, and the unsociable traveller turned round to take a drink. Seizing the chance, Boggs asked: ‘Going as far east as New York?’
‘No,’ grunted the man.
‘Ah!’ said Boggs, ‘New York is dull this time of year; mebbee you’re striking for Philadelphia?’
The surly one shook his head.