But all his speculations past Compare at nothing to the last; This made the people stand aghast At Barnum! An angel’s voice was heard afar Eclipsing every former “_star_” And in a twinkling, Barnum’s “_thar_” Was Barnum! Yes, Barnum’s offered her a “_pile_” Some thought him crazy all the while, But now he “does it up in style” Does Barnum. III In 1854, sitting under the weird, gilded minarets and Persian domes of his replica of the George IV. Pavilion, in his private study, where the walls were brocaded with rich orange satin, Barnum composed his first autobiography. He was forty-four years old. General Tom Thumb, The Fejee Mermaid and The Woolly Horse, The Swedish Nightingale and The Bearded Lady, had made his fortune, and, taking his ease at his “Iranistan,” the promoter of these works told the world how to do it, or at least how he thought he did it. The book is an extraordinary one; in the large library of theatrical memories and books of actors’ and managers’ reminiscences it stands out as highly exceptional both in quality and quantity. From the year 1855, when Barnum first issued the _Life of P. T. Barnum Written by Himself_, until 1891, when he died, there were seven different editions of this book under that and other titles. The story is that a lady who bought all the successive editions of the _Life of P. T. Barnum Written by Himself_, and _Struggles and Triumphs, or Forty Years’ Recollections of P. T. Barnum Written by Himself_, as it was sometimes called, said to Barnum: “You know, Mr. Barnum, I am continually busy with your ‘Life.’ You have no idea how much I enjoy reading it.” “My dear madam,” said Barnum, “that is nothing to the way I enjoy living it.” He should have added, “and writing it,” for, every year after the first revised edition was issued in 1869, Barnum added an appendix, telling in detail what had happened to him of interest to the world during the past year. He developed his autobiography, which was sold in large numbers first at the Museum and later at the Circus, into an annual message to the American people, a periodical repetition of the details of his lively achievement. The appendix usually told how much the Circus had earned during the past year, what cities Barnum had visited and who had visited him at Bridgeport; if he chanced to move his residence, there was a new, pretty description of his latest house. He also gave thanks that he was still alive, and expressed appropriate humility before God and his readiness at any time to proceed to heaven, should the necessity arise. There is so much solemn reiteration of the fact that “all of that which we now prize highly (except our love to God and our affections for humanity), shall dwindle into insignificance,” that one suspects Barnum of an obsession in the nature of regret that the