Since Queen Victoria had received General Tom Thumb three times, it was almost an act of disloyalty for any of her subjects in London to neglect to visit him. At a country fair Barnum heard the English proprietor of a small collection of waxworks, whose articles of trade were beginning to turn yellow with neglect, say to some of his fellow craftsmen: “Tom Thumb has got the name, and you all know the name’s everything. Tom Thumb couldn’t never shine, even in my van, ’long side of a dozen dwarfs I knows, if this Yankee hadn’t bamboozled our Queen--Gawd bless her--by getting him afore her half a dozen times.” “Yes, yes--that’s the ticket,” another agreed, “our Queen patronizes everything _foreign_, and yet she wouldn’t visit my beautiful waxworks to save the crown of _H_ingland.” This recommendation of his publicity skill must have pleased Barnum, but his lowly rivals were not accurate, for, as much as General Tom Thumb owed his success to Barnum, the manager had good raw material with which to work; it was General Tom Thumb’s pert and whimsical charm that won the Queen after Barnum gained the audience. Her subjects were equally enthusiastic, and the receipts from March until July of 1844 for the public exhibitions averaged more than $500 each day. Carriages lined up outside Egyptian Hall as if for a command performance at the opera, and portraits of the General appeared in all the illustrated newspapers. The Duke of Wellington called frequently at Egyptian Hall, and on one occasion the Duke was delighted with the General’s costume and imitation of Napoleon. When Wellington asked the miniature Napoleon on what he was pondering so deeply, Tom Thumb, retaining his sober expression, said that he was thinking of the loss of the Battle of Waterloo. This obvious display of wit delighted the Duke and was published all over England, thereby increasing Barnum’s receipts. Besides their public exhibitions Barnum and his midget visited the houses of the nobility three or four nights each week and gave private exhibitions at ten guineas each. They often visited two parties in an evening. The Dowager Queen, Adelaide, invited General Tom Thumb to Marlborough House and gave him a watch and chain made for his size; she also gave him moral advice, which he promised to observe carefully when he grew up. The Duke of Devonshire presented him with a gold and turquoise snuff-box.