Wake up!" Mr. Barnum had been a witness to this scene and he came to me in a tremendous rage, saying: "Have you no respect for me at all?"
"What do you mean, Mr. Barnum?"
"What do I mean?" he replied. "Why, I wish to know your intent in calling that drunken, illiterate brute by my name."
Of course, after an explanation, Mr. Barnum's rage cooled, but I think he was never so much annoyed in his life. It well illustrates how thoroughly he hated the vice of drunkenness. After that episode strict injunctions were given to refrain from calling the man "Barnum."
On one occasion when we had run to Joplin, Mo., the train was divided into three sections, the first having been switched on a siding to wait for the other two. I was sitting at the hotel, eating breakfast, when the superintendent of the road came in and announced, "I am afraid you will not show to-day."
"Why not?" I replied.
"Well," said he, "the section of your train that has already pulled out has run wild down a steep grade over an immense trestle with nothing but zigzags and reverse curves. We have to run over them with our passenger
