Coup noticed that in the larger towns the receipts averaged from $5,000 to $7,000 a day, and in the smaller towns they fell to $2,000 a day. This led him to consider the possibility of transporting the Barnum show by rail, thus making sufficiently long trips to eliminate all towns where the receipts were likely to fall below $5,000. Barnum tells in his autobiography how he triumphed over all other showmen because of his high-handed enterprise and his liberal outlay of money. He particularly records how he startled his partners, Coup and Costello, when he decided to transport the circus by rail. But these statements were not true. All his associates in the circus who have left any records of their opinions agree that in his last years Barnum was inclined to be niggardly and conservative, traits which would have been fatal to the success of such a gigantic enterprise as he was then conducting. It was Coup who negotiated with the railroads for the transportation of the circus, and who informed Barnum arbitrarily that during the season of 1872 the circus would be transported by rail. The innovation startled Barnum, and he protested vigorously. Even after rail transportation had been demonstrated as successful, Barnum urged that it should be abandoned in favor of the old wagons, confining the show to short trips. But Coup refused to listen to Barnum, and he so perfected the details of loading and unloading that it was made possible to make trips of one hundred miles each night, give the far-famed street parade in the morning, and an afternoon and evening performance in each city visited. His system of railroad transportation also made it possible to carry a much larger show about the country, and during the first season of rail transportation the receipts of the circus were more than one million dollars, according to Barnum’s own figures. These tremendous figures of profits and expenditure were enough to frighten a younger man than Barnum.