produced a thousand-dollar bank roll and entered into an understanding as
to what was to be done next day, when the bill was due on the calendar.

The great man took the money, repaired to a gambling house, had an
extraordinary run of luck, won heavily, and playing all night, forgetting
about his engagement, went to bed at daylight, not appearing in the House
at all. The bill was called, and there being nobody to represent it, under
the rule it went over and to the bottom of the calendar, killed for that
session at least.

The day after the claimant met his recreant attorney on the avenue face to
face and took him to task for his delinquency.

"Ah, yes," said the great man, "you are the little rascal who tried to
bribe me the other day. Here is your dirty money. Take it and be off with
you. I was just seeing how far you would go."

The comment made by those who best knew the great man was that if instead
of winning in the gambling house he had lost he would have been up betimes
at his place in the House, and doing his utmost to pass the claimant's bill
and obtain a second fee.

Another memory of those days has to do with music. This was the coming of
Jenny Lind to America. It seemed an event. When she reached Washington Mr.
Barnum asked at the office of my father's newspaper for a smart lad to sell
the programs of the concert--a new thing in artistic showmanry. "I don't
want a paper carrier, or a newsboy," said he, "but a young gentleman, three
or four young gentlemen." I was sent to him. We readily agreed upon the
commission to be received--five cents on each twenty-five cent program--the
oldest of old men do not forget such transactions. But, as an extra