Absence did not make them forgotten in New York, however, but only increased public interest in them. When he returned to his Museum Mr. Barnum found that he himself had come to be regarded as one of its chief curiosities. "If I showed myself about the Museum, or wherever else I was known, I found eyes peering and fingers pointing at me, and could frequently overhear the remark, 'There's Barnum.' On one occasion, soon after my return, I was sitting in the ticket-office, reading a newspaper. A man came and purchased a ticket of admission. 'Is Mr. Barnum in the Museum?' he asked. The ticket-seller, pointing to me, answered, 'This is Mr. Barnum.' Supposing the gentleman had business with me, I looked up from the paper. 'Is this Mr. Barnum?' he asked. 'It is,' I replied. He stared at me for a moment, and then, throwing down his ticket, exclaimed, 'It's all right; I have got the worth of my money;' and away he went, without going into the Museum at all." In the fall of 1847 they went South, visiting and giving exhibitions at Charleston, Columbia, Augusta, Savannah, Milledgeville, Macon, Columbus, Montgomery, Mobile and New Orleans. At the last-named place they spent three weeks, including the Christmas holidays. After New Year's they went to Cuba, and were received at Havana by the Captain-General and the aristocracy of the city. For a month they gave exhibitions in Havana and Matanzas with great success. The only serious drawback was the hotels, which they did not find good; indeed, it was difficult for them to get enough to eat. The Washington House, at Havana, where they lived for some time, was characterized by Mr. Barnum as "first-rate bad!" From Cuba they returned to New Orleans, and thence to New York by way of the Mississippi river, St. Louis, Louisville, Cincinnati and Pittsburg. And then, in May, 1848, it was agreed that Barnum should travel no more with the little General. "I had," says Barnum, "competent agents who could exhibit him without my personal assistance, and I preferred to relinquish a portion of the profits rather than continue to be a travelling showman. I had now been a straggler from home most of the time for thirteen years, and I cannot describe the feelings of gratitude with which I reflected that, having by the most arduous toil and deprivations succeeded in securing a satisfactory competence, I should henceforth spend my days in the bosom of my family."