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Of all the wonder workers I have known, Mr. Barnum was easily chief. With him, as with most of the people I have met intimately, I was a veritable pet. He was continually inventing new names by which to call me, and for a long time addressed me only as "Commodore." The origin of the title was in itself amusing. It occurred while we were on a trip to New York. I had been stopping at his home in Bridgeport, where we boarded the train. At Danbury a lady entered the car and, recognizing Mr. Barnum, at once approached us.

"Why good morning, Mrs. Knight," he said, rising. "Let me introduce you to Miss Warren."

"Oh Mr. Barnum," she replied playfully. "you can't deceive me. I see you have Commodore Nutt dressed up as a little lady."

"But I am not trying to deceive you this time. I assure you, Mrs. Knight," he answered. "Miss Warren is really what she seems. Commodore Nutt is in New York awaiting us."

But no matter what he could say, Mrs. Knight would not be convinced. She left the train at the next station, apparently firm in the belief that I was the Commodore, and Mr. Barnum then remarked to me, "Pretty funny, Commodore, isn't it, how many people actually insist on being humbugged?"

I have often said that I believed I was born for my business, and just as surely Mr. Barnum was born for his. In private or in public he was always an entertainer. He was the life of every gathering he entered, and was always in demand as an after dinner orator. Stories of the jokes he played on other people are without end, and he enjoyed telling them, but I never knew him to tell one at his own expense, although they were numerous enough.

I remember an instance which took place at Springfield soon after our return from Europe. We persuaded a young musician of our troupe, Charlie Gill, who was never so happy as when playing a practical joke, to try to catch Mr. Barnum. So one night he raised the skin at the base of his palm with a needle, and inserted a sprig almost twelve inches long from a corn broom, so that only about a quarter of an inch was visible under the skin and the rest was hidden under his coat sleeve. As soon as Mr. Barnum entered the room, Charlie called out to our manager, "Oh Mr. Wells, I've got a sliver in my hand, and I can't get it out have you got a pair of tweezers? It hurts like the mischief!"

Everybody knew that Mr. Barnum always carried a pair of tweezers; so Mr. Wells made only a pretense of searching his pockets.

"No, Charlie," he said, " I haven't. Let me see your hand. Why, that looks pretty bad. You'd better go and see the doctor. You -- "

"What's the matter there, Gill?" interrupted Mr. Barnum. "A splinter in your hand? Pooh! I'll fix that in a minute." He pulled out his tweezers and gently grasped the end of the sprig with them. Then carefully, so as not to hurt Charlie, he began to draw it out. You can imagine the laugh that burst out as the twelve inches of corn sprig emerged from under Charlie Gill's sleeve.

There are probably few persons alive to-day who have had as varied experience as I in the matter of vehicles for travel. I began my career long before the era of electricty, and some little time before steam cars had become a universal medium. Stages were still in use in the country districts in Massachusetts until after I first left home. The trains on which I went West with Colonel Wood were crude and uncomfortable, and the steamboats on which we traveled up and down the Mississippi were certainly picturesque and not lacking in excitement, if they offered nothing else.

Our trip across the continent in the early days of the Union Pacific was one that can never be duplicated. No Pullman cars, none of the conveniences which make traveling a pleasure nowadays, were then in vogue. The passage of time lends a sort of romance to those old fashioned modes of travel, but I can assure you there was nothing romantic in the actual experience. Our itinerary involved on the average one hundred and ten miles of traveling and two entertainments daily. The fact that we completed this tour without physical breakdown should be sufficient answer to the question as to whether we had mature bodies, whatever may be thought of our brains.

In Utah, although we had bargained for comfortable vehicles, we had to travel in springless box wagons drawn by mules. The memory of the extreme discomfort of those conveyances, however, is counteracted by the fact that it was from one of them that I got my first glimpse of Great Salt Lake. The stage coach in California was, I suppose, a great improvement over them, but again my judgment is biased by the fact that during one of my first experiences with the California coach and four horses ran away and we narrowly escaped being pitched headlong into the road.

Stopping to water the horses on the road from Marysville to Colusa, the driver got down from his seat to readjust the harness. All the men in the party also seized the opportunity to "stretch their legs," as they said, leaving Mrs. Bleeker, our manager's wife, Minnie, and myself alone in the carriage. Just as the driver had detached the two leaders, the other horses took fright in some unaccountable way and dashed off down the road with us. We were terrified beyond words; but Mrs. Bleeker, with the calmness of a brave woman, gathered Minnie and myself in her arms to afford us all the protection she could. I could see no hope of escape, as the horses galloped along with ever increasing speed, rocking the carriage from side to side. Minnie was too young to take in the full terrors of the situation, and called our to the frightened horses, "I can ride as fast as you can run!"