“The Art of Money-Getting” was immediately successful in getting money for Barnum. In a half-column review of the lecture the _London Times_ paid tribute to the showman’s “fund of dry humor,” sonorous voice, and surprisingly respectable appearance, more like that of a man of business than a charlatan! The _Times_ reported that “hundreds of people pressed one after another into the large music-hall [St. James’s] for the purpose of seeing and hearing the most adventurous and least scrupulous of showmen.... The whole scene was, in fact, an apotheosis of notoriety.” “Whether a huge multitude,” reflected the _Times_, “applauding an orator for a deliberate panegyric of ‘humbug’ may be considered as a sign of the high moral state of a nation is a point that we will not here discuss.” But before taking credit for the achievements of a Prince of Humbugs, Barnum had taken a precaution: “... he had so defined the word ‘humbug’ as to render it comparatively harmless.” “Had he satisfactorily demonstrated,” said the _Times_, “that he was John Howard or Alfred the Great or any other immortal benefactor of his race, he couldn’t have been honored with more encouraging cheers than when, with marvelous effrontery, he declared that he himself was considered the greatest humbug in the whole world.... And we may assert, with equal truth, that notoriety puts itself out at compound interest. If Mr. Barnum has got nothing else by the admiring throng he has at least got a new chapter for a second edition of his autobiography. Having already related how he drew together a mob of Yankees to see a few tame bulls, he can now describe the eagerness of John Bull to see the most enterprising of Yankees.”