he money."

"Not much! No giving back the money with me; and as I sold the tickets
and have the cash, you can rely on that. You have got to do something to
entertain these people. You can sing can't you?"

"Indeed I can not."

"Can you whistle?"

"No, sir."

"Can you do anything? Can you speak a piece?"

"Johnston, if my life was at stake I couldn't do a thing! ---- the old
talking machine anyhow! I wish--"

"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 f