It was found impossible to keep up steam. It fell to half pressure every day before stopping time came. One morning, about a week after the opening, on my arrival my friend Mr. Lee, who was superintendent of the machinery department, came to me and said, “Do you know what they are all saying about here?” “No,” I replied. “Well,” said he, “you ought to know. It is that your engines use all the steam, and your boiler does not make any, and that is where all the trouble is.” I replied: “I am ready for them. You see that valve up there. I put it in expressly to meet whatever questions might arise. By closing it I can shut my system off from the general steam connections and run my two engines from my own boiler, and will try to get on without their assistance.” So a ladder was brought and I went up and shut the valve. Directly my pressure rose to 70 pounds, the pressure allowed; my automatic damper closed as nearly as it was permitted to do, and the steam began to blow off. To prevent this, the fireman had to set his door a little way open, and in this condition we ran all day. In the rest of the show the steam ran down until at noon there was barely 15 pounds pressure, but the wrath of the exhibitors of machinery driven by other engines was blowing off. After the noon hour the additional boiler was started and helped them a good deal, so that, starting with 70 pounds at 1 o’clock, at 5 o’clock they still had 25 pounds pressure. Mr. Lee asked me several times during the day to open the valve and I refused to do it. Finally, at about 5 o’clock, he said to me, “If you don’t open that valve, I shall.” “Well,” said I, “there will be a number of the managers of the Institute here at this hour, I presume, and if you will send for them and have them come here and see the state of the case for themselves then I will open the valve.” So this was done. Half a dozen of these gentlemen came and made an inspection of the boilers and said to me: “We are quite satisfied. It is evident that you have been supplying most of the steam and using very little.” So I opened the valve and there was no further trouble. The assistance of the large boiler added that day prevented any serious fall of pressure afterwards. A few days after the above incident a committee of the managers waited on me and said: “We have heretofore had a good deal of trouble with our steam supply, and would like next year to have a boiler that we can rely upon. What will you ask to leave this boiler here for our use next season?” I agreed with them for three hundred dollars, and so the boiler remained for the next exhibition, when there will be something more to be said about it and views of it will be shown. That winter Barnum wintered his animals in that building, and paid me three hundred dollars more for the use of the boiler to warm it. In my ignorance of business these items of good luck came in very handy. Mr. Allen said he never heard of a new thing so successful from the start.