o further object in keeping the thing quiet. It seems that
Forepaugh's agents found out that Barnum had purchased the elephant from
an impecunious Indian Rajah; in fact, he had purchased two, the first
one having died on its way to England. It was the misdirection of a
cable announcing the death and ordering another at any cost which put
them wise to the fact that Barnum had a rarity. Watson had never heard
of a sacred elephant, but he started out to get one when he read that
cablegram. They were scarce articles, and Barnum had bought the only two
which were to be had for love or money in all India, so he and Cross got
their heads together and started out to manufacture a bogus one in
Liverpool.

"They prepared a closed stall, which was always kept locked, and put an
elephant in it--just a common, or garden, elephant. Then Sam and his
groom, Telford, proceeded to get busy with bath bricks, pumice stone
and a barrel of white aniline dye. I imagine they had a pretty hard
winter's work and it was certainly a tough period for the elephant,
because they had to scrape about half the skin off the poor brute before
the dye would take hold. They finally succeeded in getting him several
shades lighter than normal, all except about eighteen inches at the end
of the trunk. They could do nothing with that on account of the habit of
the beast, which was always mussing around in its bedding, searching for
stray peanuts.

[Illustration: _"Then Sam and his groom, Telford, proceeded to get
busy."_]

"They kept in touch with the London Zoo and found out when we were to
ship the genuine one, and then got their fake on a steamer which would
land it in New York a few days ahead of us. Of course, they had to keep
working at it all the way over, but they kept it quiet and no one caught
on. When the scientific sharps came to examine it, Sam would hoist the
trunk up in the air while he drew their attention to the marvelous
whiteness of the under side, and no one caught on to the fact that the
end of the trunk was the natural color.

"He let them remove some bits of skin for microscopic examination to
prove that no dye was used, but he always had them taken from the inner
side of the foreleg near the body, from which the natural pigment is
absent in all elephants. Sam swears that they never had to fix one of
the experts; they were only too anxious to get the advertisement, and
they were prepared to swear, and did in this particular case, that