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. 
