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

to go to law on the subject, we had better try to agree upon the value of the horse. You may mark on a slip of paper what sum you think you ought to owe me for him, and I will do the same; we can then compare notes, and see how far we differ.”

“I will mark,” said Beers, “but, Uncle Phile, don’t be too hard with me.”

“I will be as easy as I can, and endeavor to make some allowance for your situation,” said my father; “but, Nelson, when I think how valuable that horse was, of course I must mark something in the neighborhood of the amount of cash I could have received for him. I believe, however, Nelson, that you are an honest young man, and are willing to do what you think is about right. I therefore wish to caution you not to mark down one cent more than you really think, under the circumstances, you ought to pay me when you are able, and for which you are now willing to give me your note of hand. You will recollect that I told you, when you applied for the horse, that I did not wish to let him go.”

Nelson gave my father a grateful look, and assented to all he said. At least a dozen of our joke-loving neighbors were witnessing the scene with great apparent solemnity. Two slips of paper were prepared; my father marked on one, and after much hesitation, Beers wrote on the other.

“Well, let us see what you have marked,” said my father.

“I suppose you will think it is too low,” replied Beers, handing my father the slip of paper.

“Only three hundred and seventy-five dollars!” exclaimed my father, reading the paper; “well, there is a pretty specimen of gratitude for you!”

Nelson was humbled, and could not muster sufficient courage to ask my father what he had marked. Finally one of our neighbors asked my father to show his paper⁠—he did so. He had marked, “Six and a quarter cents.” Our neighbor read it aloud, and a shock of mirth ensued, which fairly lifted Beers to his feet. It was some time before he could comprehend the joke, and when he became fully aware that no harm was done, he was the happiest fellow I have ever seen.

I might fill a volume with these reminiscences of my younger days, but turning once more to my foreign notebooks, I find material there which seems to claim a place in this story-chapter. I am never tired of telling and laughing at some of my mishaps and adventures in trying to use the French language, when I first went abroad. It was no unusual thing to travel half a day in a “diligence,” or in the cars, with some Englishman, as I would afterwards discover, both of us doing our best to make ourselves intelligible to each other in French, till at last, in despair, one or the other would utter the conventional conundrum:

“Parlez-vous Anglais?”

“Why, of course; I am an American” (or an Englishman); and then a mutual roar would follow.

American, or English, or Dutch French is generally quite a different thing from “French French.” Thus I could always understand the Dutchmen who spoke to me in French in Amsterdam, and I may add, they could perfectly understand me. We spoke the same patois. I wrote to my wife, I remember, from Amsterdam, that I found they spoke much purer French in that city than in Paris!

Once on arriving in Paris at the station of the Northern Railway, I, with other passengers, was in the room devoted to the examination of baggage. Among the rest, was a party consisting of a New York merchant and his wife, with their daughter, a young lady of eighteen, who was at once volatile and voluble. Undoubtedly, she had spoken the best Madison-Avenue school French for five years or more; and with this she fairly overwhelmed the official interpreter who was present. After hearing her for full five minutes, the interpreter gravely asked:

“Do you speak English, Miss?”

“Certainly,” was the reply.

“Well, speak English then, if you please, for I can understand your English better than I can your French.”

I was one evening at the house of my friend, Mr. John Nimmo, in Paris, and while waiting for him and his family to return from the theater, was entertained for an hour or more by two very agreeable young ladies, to whom I made such reply in French, from time to time, as I could. At last came the inevitable inquiry as to the capacity of the young ladies in the English language:

“Why, bless us, Mr. Barnum,” was the reply; “we are Scotch governesses, who are here in Paris simply to learn French!”

The last time I went from France to England, arriving late at night, I stopped in Dover, at the hotel nearest the customhouse, so as to look after my luggage next day. Ringing my bell early in the morning, for shaving-water, half asleep I called out to the serving-maid for “l’eau chaude.”

“Please, sir,” was the reply, “I do not speak French.”

“Nor I, either,” said I, promptly; “just bring me some hot water, if you please.”

But some of the English have a queer way of speaking their own language, and the cockney’s management of what he would call the “haspirate” is sufficiently familiar. Crowding into Exeter Hall, London, at an entertainment, one evening, I heard the usher just before me shouting out seats, as he looked at the checks, in this fashion:

“Letter Ha, first row; letter Hef, sixth row; letter He, fifth row; letter Hi, ninth row”; and so on. Seeing that my own check was “L,” I showed it to him, and quietly inquired:

“Where do I go to, usher?”

“You go to Hell,” was the prompt response; which was not intended to be either profane or impolite.

But I must bring this story-telling chapter⁠—an episode in the narrative of graver events in my autobiography⁠—to a close, and