The Life of P.T. Barnum

“As for the matter of that, I’ll be afther selling almost any thing for money,” responded the Irishman.

“Is he a good watch-dog?”

“Faith, and he’ll defind with his last dhrop of blood any property that you’ll show him.”

“Is he good to drive cattle from a field?”

“He’ll never give over chasing any thing he sees till it’s fairly into the street, after you once acquaint him with your wishes.”

“Will you warrant all that you say is true?”

“Sure I will, and I’ll give back the money if it’s a lie I’m telling you,” earnestly replied Peter O’Brien.

“What will you take for the dog?”

“Only the trifling matter of two dollars.”

“Well,” replied our villager, “he don’t look as if he was worth two cents, but as I want a watch-dog with all the good qualities which you recommend, I’ll take him.”

“I’m sure it’s making fun of me you are,” said Peter; “and I don’t know what Mrs. O’Brien could do without her favorite dog.”

“I confess I was joking at first, Peter, but I am now in earnest, and there is your money,” said his customer, handing him the two dollars.

“A bargain is a bargain,” replied Peter, as he stowed away his money in a bit of old bladder which he used as a purse, “but sure and there’ll be the deuce to pay with Mrs. O’Brien.”

“Oh, you must buy her a little snuff to pacify her,” replied the wag.

“Faith, and this will hold something that will do it better than snuff,” replied Peter, as he took a wooden gallon bottle from his wagon and walked into the store.

“Now, me boy,” said O’Brien, approaching me, “be after giving me half a gallon of New England rum, and half a gallon of molasses.”

“Where is your other bottle?” I inquired.

“That will hold a gallon,” replied Peter, with a gravity which evidently was not assumed.

“But you don’t want to mix the rum and molasses together, I suppose?” I replied.

“Sure, and what a jackass I am, for I never thought of that,” exclaimed Peter, in a tone of surprise, “and divil another bottle did I bring at all at all!”

Peter was as witty a fellow as ever left the Emerald Isle, and yet at times he was as stupid as a horse-block, the foregoing instance being a veritable illustration of the fact.

When Peter next came to our village, he was accosted very roughly by his dog-customer, when the following conversation ensued:

“You lying Irishman! I want you to take that miserable puppy and give me back my two dollars.”

“Fun is fun,” replied Peter, “and you are always funning me, but I don’t like ye to charge me with lying, for that’s a thing I leave for my betters. I never tells lies, sir.”

“You do; you lied and deceived me about that worthless dog.”

“Divil a lie did I tell ye at all at all.”

“Why, the dog is blind as a bat,” replied the customer in great anger.

“Sure, and that’s no fault of the poor dog’s, but his serious misfortune,” replied Peter solemnly, amid a shout of laughter from a dozen loungers in the store.

“But you said he would watch property, and drive cattle out of the field.”

“Not at all. I said he would chase any thing that he’d see, and watch all that you would show him,” replied O’Brien with imperturbable gravity.

Another scene of merriment ensued, and the wag, seeing that Peter had the advantage of him, quietly asked him if he was going to refund the money.

“Surely not, for many valuable reasons, one of which is, I spent it three days ago.”

“But your wife, who loved the dog so well, would be glad to see him home again, I suppose?” replied the victim, who was becoming reconciled to the joke.

“As for the matter of that,” replied Peter, “I told her he was sold into good and benevolent hands, and she has at last become reconciled to her loss.”

Another laugh followed, in which the dog-purchaser joined.

“Well, you may keep the money,” he replied, “but you may take the dog.”

“No, I thank ye, it would only be opening the wound of Mrs. O’Brien afresh, and that you know would be cruel,” replied Peter.

In the days of which I am now writing, a much stricter outward regard was paid to the Sabbath in the State of Connecticut than at present. If a man was seen riding horseback or in a carriage on Sunday before sundown, a tithing-man, deacon of a church, or grand-jury man was sure to arrest him, and unless he could show that sickness or some other case of necessity induced him to come out, he was fined the next day.

The mail stage from New York to Boston was permitted to run on the Sabbath, but in no case to take passengers. Sometimes the cupidity of the New York agents would induce them to book travellers through Connecticut on the holy day, but nearly every meeting-house had its sentinel on the look-out, and it was very difficult for a driver to escape being arrested if he had one or more persons in his coach. In that case the driver, his horses, stage, mail and passengers were obliged to “lie to” until Monday morning, when driver and passengers must each pay a fine before being permitted to depart.

On one occasion, Oliver Taylor and Benjamin Hoyt, a brace of wags from Bethel, were in New York, and as the way-bill was filled for several week-days ahead, they went to the stage office, No. 21 Bowery, early one Sunday morning, and asked to be carried that day to Norwalk, Ct.

“It can’t be done,” peremptorily replied the stage agent.

“It is very important,” responded Oliver; “my wife and children are dangerously sick at Bethel, and I must reach there before to-morrow morning.”

“And my mother isn’t expected to live the day out,” meekly added ’Squire Ben, with a face considerably elongated.

“It won’t do, gentlemen; these periodical sicknesses are excessively prevalent, and I am wonderfully sorry for you, but we have been stopped, fined, and our mail detained several times this year, in your State. We are decidedly sick of it, and will carry no more passengers in Connecticut on Sunday,” was the prompt reply.

“They are not as strict now as they were formerly,” urged Mr. Taylor.

“Not half,” added Mr. Hoyt.

“Formerly!” exclaimed the agent; “why, it is only two weeks since we were arrested in Stamford.”

“Yes, and it cost me eleven dollars besides the detention,” added the proprietor, who had just stepped in.

“Now, sir,” said Mr. Taylor, addressing the proprietor, “our business is urgent; we are Connecticut men, and know Connecticut laws and Connecticut deacons – yes, and how to dodge them, too. We will pay you ten dollars for our passages to Norwalk, and whenever we pass through a Connecticut village we will lie down on the bottom of the stage, and thus your vehicle, being apparently empty, will pass through unmolested.”

“Will you do this promptly as you pass through each Connecticut village?” asked the melting proprietor.