CIRCUS DAYS ii 



family. Of course, Barnum's plan was just as un- 

 thinkable to them as if he had offered to exhibit 

 the king in his side-show. There was a hot 

 exchange of cablegrams between Barnum in New 

 York and Gaylord in Siam. Finally Barnum 

 offered the government $250,000 for the privilege 

 of borrowing one of the elephants for just one year. 

 He agreed to support a retinue of priests and 

 attendants and to pay all transportation charges. 

 The government would not even consider the propo- 

 sition so Gaylord gave up in disgust and cabled that 

 the deal was off. But Barnum was not discouraged. 

 When Gaylord returned to this country, he found 

 that the old man was advertising a white elephant 

 from the royal palace of Siam. Barnum had simply 

 used a whitewash brush on an ordinary elephant, 

 with the result that he had a whiter elephant than 

 the Siamese ever dreamed of seeing. The animal 

 was so covered with velvet robes and surrounded by 

 attendants that the audience could not detect the 

 fraud; the general effect was good and the trick 

 brought in a lot of money. 



Gaylord was quite deaf when I knew him, and 

 so was Fryer. Sometimes at rehearsal in the morn- 

 ing Fryer would come along and say to Gaylord: 

 "Let's go up on the top seat I want to tell you 

 something privately." Then they would climb up 

 to the top seats and exchange confidences shout- 

 ing at each other so loud that you could hear them 

 all over the lot. 



