Struggles and Triumphs - P. T. Barnum (top 20 books to read txt) 📗

a town “down East,” who had some difficulty with a conductor, and vowed that not another cent of his money should ever go into the treasury of that company.

“But,” said the conductor of the road, “you own property in one place on the line, and do business in another place, and are obliged to go back and forth almost every day: how are you going to help paying something to the company?”

“Oh! hereafter I shall pay my fare to you in the cars,” was the reply.

It may be a joke, but conductors themselves, that is, some of them, are more or less facetious on the subject of what in the vernacular is known as “knocking down.” Soon after the conductors on the New York and New Haven Railroad were put in costume while on duty, and were obliged to wear a badge bearing the initials of the company, my friend Rev. Dr. Chapin was accompanying me over the road to my Bridgeport home, when along came a conductor, whom we both knew well, to collect our fares.

“Ah, I see,” said Dr. Chapin, pointing to the letters on the new badge, “N.H., N.Y.⁠—‘Neither Here, Nor Yonder.’ ”

“No,” whispered the conductor confidentially in the Doctor’s ear; “it means, ‘New House, Next Year.’ ”

It is scarcely necessary to tell the thousands who know Dr. Chapin that he is a man of most ready wit, and an inveterate punster. One day, when we were dining together, I was carving a chicken, which the Doctor pronounced a “hen-ous offence,” when, having some difficulty with a tough wing, I exclaimed:

“How shall I get the thing off, anyhow?”

“Pullet,” gravely answered the Doctor.

“Eggsactly,” said I.

Then began what the Doctor called a “battle of the spurs,”⁠—I trying to “crow” over the Doctor, and he endeavoring to upset my “cackle-ations”; urging me meanwhile to “scratch away,” till at last I told him, if he made another pun on that “lay,” he would knock me off the roost.

“Oh, then,” said the Doctor, finally feathering his nest, “Shan’t I clear?!”

An equally fowl pun of the Doctor’s was perpetrated in cold blood, or rather in very cold water, down at Rockport, Massachusetts. Thither every summer season were wont to congregate, for their vacation, such celebrated clergymen as Starr King, Dr. Chapin, and others, mainly for the fine sea-bathing there. One season Dr. Chapin arrived at least a fortnight behind the rest; and, when they went down bathing together, the acclimated visitors pronounced the water to be “delightful,” “just right,” and so on.

“But isn’t it cold?” asked Dr. Chapin.

“Oh, no,” replied Starr King; “you have only to go down and up twice, and you are warm enough.”

“Ah, I see how it is,” said Dr. Chapin, who tried the experiment and came up half frozen; “you are warm after down and up twice? Why, that’s a pair o’ ducks!”

Fowls naturally suggest the market, and this brings to mind a neighbor of mine in New York who keeps two things⁠—a boardinghouse, and “bad hours.” His wife justly suspected him of gambling; but he generally managed to get in before midnight, and always had money enough in his pocket to go to market with in the morning. On one occasion, however, after gambling all night, he did not come home till six o’clock in the morning, when, after a sound scolding from his wife for staying out all night and “gambling,” as she insisted, he was sent to market to get something for breakfast. Returning, he was again berated by his wife for gambling, he protesting all the while that he had been “spending the night with a sick friend.”

His wife might have believed him, if he had not sat down at the head of the table, half asleep, and solemnly passed the bread to the nearest boarder with the exclamation⁠—

“Cut!”

“That’s your ‘sick friend!’ ” exclaimed the wife, while a general roar around the table woke the host to the fact that he was passing bread, and not a pack of cards.

This story-telling carries me back to my boyhood days at Bethel, and brings to mind an old clerical acquaintance whom I knew long before I met Dr. Chapin. The Rev. Richard Varick Dey, who resided at Greenfield, Connecticut, was in the habit of coming to Bethel to preach on Sabbath evenings. He was a very eloquent preacher, and an eccentric man. He possessed fine talents; his sermons were rich in pathos and wit; and he was exceedingly popular with the world’s people. The more straightlaced, however, were afraid of him. His remarks both in and out of the pulpit would frequently rub hard against some popular dogma, or knock in the head some favorite religious tenet. Mr. Dey was therefore frequently in hot water with the church, and was either “suspended,” or about to be brought to trial for some alleged breach of ministerial duty, or some suspected heresy. While thus debarred from preaching, he felt that he must do something to support his family. With this view he visited Bethel, Danbury, and other towns, and delivered “Lectures,” at the termination of which, contributions for his benefit were taken up. I remember his lecturing in Bethel on “Charity.” This discourse overflowed with eloquence and pathos, and terminated in a contribution of more than fifty dollars.

It was said that on one occasion Mr. Dey was about to be tried before an ecclesiastical body at Middletown. There being no railroads in those days, many persons travelled on horseback. Two days before the trial was to take place, Mr. Dey started for Middletown alone, and on horseback. His valise was fastened behind the saddle; and, putting on his large greatcoat surmounted with a half a dozen broad “capes,” as was the fashion of that period, and donning a broad-brimmed hat, he mounted his horse and started for the scene of trial.

On the second day of his journey, and some ten miles before reaching Middletown, he overtook a brother clergyman, also on horseback, who was wending his way to the Consociation.

He was a man perhaps sixty years of age, and his silvered