24 TRAPPING WILD ANIMALS 
At Donald Burns’s place I talked my venture 
over with many showmen. They were all inter- 
ested and wished to encourage me, but they were 
frankly doubtful of my success because they knew 
of old Mahommed Ariff’s monopoly. Burns offered 
to help me dispose of the animals, but I was not 
elated at that prospect, for Burns did not attend 
very strictly to business. It was a well-known story 
in the circus world that he had neglected the oppor- 
tunity of handling the first hippopotamus brought 
to this country. A sea captain had offered to sell 
it to him for $3,000, but Burns refused to take it— 
he simply wasn’t interested. A few days later it 
was sold to Barnum for $10,000. 
Strangely enough, it was Burns’s easygoing way 
of managing his affairs that gave me my opportun- 
ity of going to Singapore. I had been in New York, 
making my plans and saving my money, but I didn’t 
feel that I had enough to start out on the venture. 
One day I was in Burns’s store when he was away, 
and a sailor came in, hiding two monkeys under 
his coat. He had smuggled them into the country 
and wanted to sell them. The monkeys were black 
with coal-dust, but one of them, I noticed, had pink 
eyes. That fact interested me and I bargained for 
them, buying the pair for fifteen dollars. When 
the sailor left, I found a cake of soap and gave them 
a bath. The monkey with the pink eyes turned out 
to be pure white. Those were the days when Jim 
Corbett was a great favorite, and he had recently 
