Sometimes when Barnum could not get exactly what he wanted for his Museum, he stooped to deception of a kind that might be characterized as both fraudulent and damaging to the interests of other entertainers. Alexander, the Conjurer, known as Alexander, the Great, who in the middle period of the nineteenth century was the most famous of all magicians, told Houdini, the magician, when the latter visited him in Germany some years ago, that when he was in New York Barnum offered him an engagement at the American Museum. Alexander refused, because at the time he was exhibiting his art for an admission fee of fifty cents, and he was afraid to lose caste if he were to exhibit at Barnum’s, where admission was only twenty-five cents. Barnum promptly hired an unknown magician and advertised him widely as Alexander, the Great. Barnum was now forty years old. In 1841 he was living on cold dinners, and Charity Barnum was hostess of a boarding house in Frankfort Street. In 1851 his wife entertained in a palatial example of Oriental architecture, and Barnum was president of a bank, with a general reputation as the most delightfully crafty man in the United States. The first decade of Barnum’s extraordinary career was summed up in the following verses published in 1851 in the _Albany Argus_: THE GREATEST MAN What man, of all the nation’s host, Now fills the public eye the most, By ever being at his post? Why, Barnum! Who is the man beyond all doubt, Who always knows what he’s about? Whose mother always “knows he’s out”? That Barnum! Who lines his pockets first with gold, By many a speculation bold, And levies on the young and old? Paul Barnum. Who carried round old, old “Joice Heth” Till she had neither life nor breath, And never gave her up till death? O! Barnum. Who told us she was “George’s nurse, Full three half centuries old or worse,” And stopped with rum her muttered curse? Didn’t Barnum? Who made a man of Tommy Thumb, Who though a little man was “_some_” And quickly brought a handsome “_plum_” For Barnum! And who but Barnum would have thought A “_Woolly Horse_” by Frémont caught Could such a host of money ’ve brought! But Barnum? But not a _horse_ alone was _wooled_; For that same stuff was often _pulled_ O’er many eyes, and all got fooled By Barnum! A Mermaid rare--a curious bird, A five-legged cat that never stirred Bring gold, as we have often heard, To Barnum. But Barnum, though he’s always _bold_, Is also _shrewd_, as we are told, He’s often _bought_ but never _sold_, Not Barnum!