206 THE HISTOET BF 



upon to sit down; though lie was evidently " full to burst 

 ing," with his enthusiastic emotions. 

 >,"'We have a good deal to learn yet, gentlemen," con- 

 tinued Barnum (and that was truthful, at any rate !) "We 

 have much to learn ; but we know enough to spur us on to 

 acquire more. More knowledge, more experience, more 

 fowls. We have n't enough — we don't know enough, yet 

 I am greatly rejoiced at the prospects, to-day, and with tho 

 entire success of this enterprise, here ! " (And well he 

 might be.) "I have freely given my time and humble 

 talents to its consummation, and we have triumphed ! We, 

 the people, the men who have the heart and the pluck to 

 undertake and carry through this sort of thing. There 's 

 no hum in this, gentlemen ! None, whatever. How can 

 there be ? We see this thing before our very eyes. It is a 

 tangible, living, breathing, walking, crowing" (and he 

 might have added eating !) "reality, ladies and gfentlemen. 

 There can be no humbug in anything of this sort ; because 

 we can take hold upon it, handle it, view it with our eyes 

 open. A humbug is but an unexplained or half-concluded 

 fact. This is a self-evident,, clearly-defined fact — 



• A thing that is — and to be Messed ! ' 



And when you, or I, can take a crower in our hands that 

 will weigh twelve or fourteen .or fifteen pounds, — when we - 

 can see and feel him, — can there, by any possibility, be 

 humbug in it?" 



