44: AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND 



and emancipating one portion of human kind / / .... 

 when came the " Genesis " of greenbacks that some 

 wiseacres predicted would be good for nothing. 

 Many believed it. At that time I had to pay a 

 man $2,000; I did pay with those green gems, he 

 took some in his fingers and waging them he said : 

 They are not good for that designing a fillip with 

 his thumb but I must take them as if they were 

 gold. At that time a man of Chicago came one day 

 here in our residence and asked me with a very few 

 words of introduction : Are you Mr. Menand ? I 



answered him I was. Well, he said, I am Mr. 



Thompson, the man who wrote you lately to get a col- 

 lection of Azaleas. Have you not received my letter ? 

 Yes, sir, I have and here are the plants and the boxes 

 ready to pack them, but I would not send them with- 

 out letting you know the price of them and a short de- 

 scription of the dimensions of the plants. I have writ- 

 ten you to that effect. O ! he exclaimed, it was of no 

 use. I knew your plants. I had seen them before at the 

 Brooklyn Exhibition. It is all right but do not send 

 them until I come back from New York, whither I am 

 going to buy some plants for that ! and he showed 

 1,000 green-horns, if you please, for they were allnew- 

 ~borns. Then I told him in assuming a becoming at- 

 titude Well, Sir ! you are just the man I wanted to see, 

 and these 1,000 dollars will suit me better than a 



