"Say, I'll tell you what we'll do. I'll announce to them that the Phonograph is too sick to talk, and will give them a choice of three things: Either a lecture on Phrenology or Telegraphy, or an imitation of a Yankee peddler selling his wares at auction; and the moment I say 'auction' you look up and begin to laugh and clap your hands and say, 'Johnston, give them the Yankee peddler; that's the best of all.'" He agreed, and when I made the announcement he had no sooner carried out my instructions than the whole house cried as with one voice: "Yes, yes, give us the Yankee peddler!" Then I felt relieved and knew we had them. I then explained that Yankee peddlers usually carried handkerchiefs, sox, hosiery, shears, shoe-laces, suspenders, soap, pencils, pins, razors, knives, etc., and if some one of the crowd would name any article, I would go through the formality of selling it on the down east Dutch auction style. A lad sitting near me on a front seat cried out: "Here, Mister, play you are selling my knife," and reaching out and taking it in my hand, after making a few preliminary remarks, I began with the twang of the almost extinct down east Yankee, and in a high-pitched voice and at lightning speed, rattled off: "Now, ladies and gentlemen, the first article I am going to offer for your inspection is a fine silver-steel blade knife with a mother-of-pearl handle, brass lined, round-joint tapped and riveted tip top and bottom a knife made under an act of Congress at the rate of thirty-six dollars per dozen there is a blade for every day in the week and a handle for your wife to play with on Sunday it will cut cast-iron steam steel wind or bone and will stick a hog frog toad or the devil and has a spring on it like a mule's hind leg and sells in the regular way for--" I then went on with my usual plan of selling, and introduced the endless variety of sayings and jokes which I had been two years manufacturing and collecting, and then went on through the whole list of Yankee notions, giving my full description of everything, to the great satisfaction of my audience and the surprise of my partner, who was in ignorance of the fact of my ever having been in the auction business. I kept this up for over two hours and kept the crowd laughing almost constantly. This, I considered, was about as much as any show could do, and felt that I was not only entitled to their money, but that I had struck quite a novel way of utilizing my knowledge of auctioneering. After closing the entertainment the people gathered around, and many of them wanted me to stay in the neighborhood and deliver a lecture the next night on Phrenology. But as we were billed at Elkhart for that date, it was impossible to do so. We remained over night with the school director, and the next morning he requested me to delineate the character of his son by an examination of his head.