Barnum scraped together all his resources and made efforts to raise $187,500 in cash. He visited Wall Street and offered the president of his bank some second mortgages as security for a loan; he suggested that the Jenny Lind contract be made over to the bank, which was to appoint a receiver of all profits exceeding $3,000 a concert. The banker laughed and said: “Mr. Barnum, it is generally believed in Wall Street that your engagement with Jenny Lind will ruin you. I do not think you will ever receive so much as three thousand dollars at a single concert.” Barnum was angry; he answered that he would not take $150,000 for his contract, but upon further inquiry in Wall Street he discovered that nobody was willing to offer anything for it. Finally, John L. Aspinwall, of the reputable banking firm of Howland & Aspinwall, gave him a letter of credit on Baring Brothers for a large sum on his mortgages. He then sold some of his real estate and discovered that with all his efforts he was still $5,000 short of the required sum. He knew no way of getting it. He happened to mention his predicament to the Rev. Abel C. Thomas, a good friend, who was one of the leading Universalist preachers of this country; Barnum was also an active Universalist, and the Rev. Abel C. Thomas lent him the necessary $5,000. Meanwhile, John Hall Wilton had returned to the United States with the signed contract. There was no cable across the Atlantic then, and when Wilton arrived in New York on February 19, 1850, Barnum did not yet know whether his mission had been successful. He was at his Museum in Philadelphia, and Wilton immediately telegraphed him in code that he had secured Jenny Lind’s services, and that she was to begin the concerts the following September. Barnum was uneasy; he felt that the time between the signing of the contract and the first concert was too long for the maintenance of continued public interest, and he telegraphed Wilton to mention the contract to no one until he met him next day in New York. But news of this nature is difficult to keep secret, and the next morning, as Barnum was riding in the train from Philadelphia to New York, he read about his Jenny Lind contract in the New York newspapers.