ALFRED BUNN, OF DRURY LANE THEATRE--AMUSING INTERVIEW--MR. LEVY, OF THE LONDON DAILY TELEGRAPH--VACATIONS AT HOME--MY PRESIDENCY OF THE FAIRFIELD COUNTY AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY--EXHIBITING A PICKPOCKET--PHILOSOPHY OF HUMBUG--A CHOP-FALLEN TICKET-SELLER--A PROMPT PAYMASTER--BARNUM IN BOSTON--A DELUDED HACK DRIVER--PHILLIPS’S FIRE ANNIHILATOR--HONORABLE ELISHA WHITTLESEY--TRIAL OF THE ANNIHILATOR IN NEW YORK--PEQUONNOCK BANK OF BRIDGEPORT--THE ILLUSTRATED NEWS--THE WORLD’S FAIR IN NEW YORK--MY PRESIDENCY OF THE ASSOCIATION--ATTEMPT TO EXCITE PUBLIC INTEREST--MONSTER JULLIEN CONCERTS--RESIGNATION OF THE CRYSTAL PALACE PRESIDENCY--FAILURE OF THE CONCERN. In the summer, I think, of 1853, I saw it announced in the newspapers that Mr. Alfred Bunn, the great ex-manager of Drury Lane Theatre, in London, had arrived in Boston. Of course, I knew Mr. Bunn by reputation, not only from his managerial career, but from the fact that he made the first engagement with Jenny Lind to appear in London. This engagement, however, Mr. Lumley, of Her Majesty’s Theatre, induced her to break, he standing a lawsuit with Mr. Bunn, and paying heavy damages. I had never met Mr. Bunn, but he took it for granted that I had seen him, for one day after his arrival in this country, a burly Englishman abruptly stepped into my private office in the Museum, and assuming a theatrical attitude, addressed me: “Barnum, do you remember me?” I was confident I had never seen the man before, but it struck me at once that no Englishman I ever heard of would be likely to exhibit more presumption or assumption than the ex-manager of Drury Lane, and I jumped at the conclusion: “Is not this Mr. Bunn?” “Ah! Ah! my boy!” he exclaimed, slapping me familiarly on the back, “I thought you would remember me. Well, Barnum, how have you been since I last saw you?” I replied in a manner that would humor his impression that we were old acquaintances, and during his two hours’ visit we had much gossip about men and things in London. He called upon me several times, and it probably never entered into his mind that I could possibly have been in London two or three years without having made the personal acquaintance of so great a lion as Alfred Bunn. I met Mr. Bunn again in 1858, in London, at a dinner party of a mutual friend, Mr. Levy, proprietor of the London Daily Telegraph. Of course, Bunn and I were great chums and very old and intimate acquaintances. At the same dinner, I met several literary and dramatic gentlemen.