A friend of mine, Mr. James D. Johnson, lived in a fine house a quarter of a mile west of Iranistan, and as I owned several acres of land at the corner of two streets directly adjoining his homestead, I surrounded the ground with high pickets, and introducing a number of Rocky Mountain elk, reindeer, and American deer, I converted it into a deer park. Strangers passing by would naturally suppose that it belonged to Johnson’s estate, and to render the illusion more complete, his son-in-law, Mr. S. H. Wales, of the Scientific American, placed a sign in the park, fronting on the street, and reading: “ALL PERSONS ARE FORBID TRESPASSING ON THESE GROUNDS, OR DISTURBING THE DEER. J. D. JOHNSON.” I “acknowledged the corn,” and was much pleased with the joke. Johnson was delighted, and bragged considerably of having got ahead of Barnum, and the sign remained undisturbed for several days. It happened at length that a party of friends came to visit him from New York, arriving in the evening. Johnson told them he had got a capital joke on Barnum; he would not explain, but said they should see it for themselves the next morning. Bright and early he led them into the street, and after conducting them a proper distance, wheeled them around in front of the sign. To his dismay he discovered that I had added directly under his name the words, “Game-keeper to P. T. Barnum.” His friends, as soon as they understood the joke, enjoyed it mightily, but it was said that neighbor Johnson laughed out of “the wrong side of his mouth.” Thereafter, Mr. Johnson was known among his friends and acquaintances as “Barnum’s game-keeper.” Sometime afterwards when I was President of the Pequonnock Bank, it was my custom every year to give a grand dinner at Iranistan to the directors, and in making preparations I used to send to certain friends in the West for prairie chickens and other game. On one occasion a large box, marked “P. T. Barnum, Bridgeport; Game,” was lying in the express office, when Johnson seeing it, and espying the word “game,” said: “Look here! I am ‘Barnum’s game-keeper,’ and I’ll take charge of this box.” And “take charge” of it he did, carrying it home and notifying me that it was in his possession, and that as he was my game-keeper he would “keep” this, unless I sent him an order for a new hat. He knew very well that I would give fifty dollars rather than be deprived of the box, and as he also threatened to give a game dinner at his own house, I speedily sent the order for the hat, acknowledged the good joke, and my own guests enjoyed the double “game.”