death had been made by himself, merely as an “advertising dodge” to bring him still more into notice, and give the public something to talk about. I met Mangin in Paris soon after this event.
“Aha, Monsieur Barnum!” he exclaimed, “did I not tell you I had a new humbug that would double the sales of my pencils? I assure you my sales are more than quadrupled, and it is sometimes impossible to have them manufactured fast enough to supply the demand. You Yankees are very clever, but by gar, none of you have discovered you should live all the better if you would die for six months. It took Mangin to teach you that.”
The patronizing air with which he made this speech, slapping me at the same time familiarly upon the back, showed him in his true character of egotist. Although good-natured and social to a degree, he was really one of the most self-conceited men I ever met.
Monsieur Mangin died the present year, and it is said that his heirs received more than half a million of francs as the fruit of his eccentric labors.
CHAPTER IV.
Old Grizzly Adams.[1]
James C. Adams, or “Grizzly Adams,” as he was generally termed, from the fact of his having captured
- ↑ Although the subject of the following sketch can hardly be classed under the head of “Humbugs,” he was an original genius, and a knowledge of some of his prominent traits seems appropriate in connection with one or two other passages of this book.
