phant would land in
New York the following day. I knew it was a fake, for they were very
difficult to obtain, but they stole our thunder, just the same. I
managed to get a peep at it while it was being unloaded, and although it
was only a dirty yellowish color, I knew that it would make ours look
like a decided brunette by comparison. They had worked it well and kept
it quiet, but knowing that there was a nigger in the woodpile and that
money would bring him out, I spent it like a drunken sailor in trying to
get information.

"Forepaugh had eminent scientists examine the beast and give their
certificates that it was genuine, and all the inside information I could
get was that the elephant had been purchased through Cross, the great
animal dealer in Liverpool, and that it had been kept secluded in his
place there all winter. Sam Watson, who was Forepaugh's foreign agent,
and his groom, a man named Telford, were the only people who had access
to it, and they had spent hours every day in its stall. Cross would give
us no information as to how or where he obtained the elephant, for
Forepaugh bought all of the animals for his menagerie through him,
while we dealt with his great rival, Hagenbeck, of Hamburg.

"Forepaugh got all the newspaper space for the next few days, and when
our elephant finally arrived it looked mighty dark-colored for a white
elephant when compared with the fake one. It was hard to educate the
people up to the significance of the little white spot in the center of
the forehead, but any one but a blind man could see that Forepaugh's
fake was lighter in color. We went at it, horse, foot and artillery, and
the fight cost the two shows more than a quarter of a million dollars,
and lasted until we patched up a truce in St. Louis to save us both
going into bankruptcy. I got some of Cross's employees to swear that
they had seen the elephant being painted in Liverpool, and Forepaugh
replied by getting a commission of scientific sharps from Ann Arbor to
examine the beast and swear that the color was natural. There was good
money in perjury and scientific opinions those days, but I never let up
for a minute in my endeavor to get at the truth of the matter, for I
knew it was hanky panky and I am a diligent searcher after truth,
especially when a rival has sunk it to the bottom of a well. I
experimented with some of our elephants until I nearly took their thick
hides off, but I could get no satisfactory results un