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Updated: June 3, 2025
When the great herd was broken up it was sold off, and I never saw it again until to-night." "But what was the inside history of the Forepaugh white elephant?" asked one of his companions, and the Colonel smiled as he lighted a fresh cigar. "I never knew it until this year, when one night over a friendly drink Sam Watson, who is now a clown with the Big Show, confessed the whole thing.
The Wedding was the biggest thing that had struck the town since Forepaugh stopped over on his way from Peoria to Decatur. Frances was not a popular Girl, on account of being so Uppish, so those who could not fight their way into the Church climbed up and looked through the Windows. The Groom wore a Swallow-Tail. Most of those present had seen Pictures of the Dress Suit.
There was little of his work to see, for his studio was some distance from his apartment. But it was enough to see Vedder himself or, for that matter, enough to hear him. In his own house he led the talk, even Forepaugh having small chance against him. He was as prolific, a splendidly determined and animated talker. It was stimulating just to watch him talk.
Of course his name was not Forepaugh though something very like it but Forepaugh answers my every purpose. For though I did know his name I did not know then, and I do not know now, who he was and why he was. I do not think anybody ever knew anything about him except that he was Forepaugh, which meant, according to his own reckoning, the most wonderful person on earth.
"'A little old! you say?" they hadn't said anything, by the way, but stood there with gaping, toothless mouths. "Not a bit of it for a jay-town circuit. Of course, it isn't a Forepaugh job for me now or else I wouldn't be down here talking to Buck & Avery. But I'm still good for it all rings, banners, hurdles, rump-cling gallop and the blazing hoop for the wind-up. You know what I can do, boys.
Soon after he committed another forepaugh by showing that a wonderful boat invented by Giovanni de Medici for the purpose of fighting hostile ships, would not work, since there were no men on board to guide it, and its automatic steering apparatus would as likely run its nose into land, as into the hull of the enemy.
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.
I never thought him more wonderful than the evening when somebody abruptly began to talk about Theosophy in the middle of one of his confidences about the Italian Court. It was no use. Without stopping to take breath, at once Forepaugh began to tell us the most marvellous theosophical adventures, which he knew not by hearsay, but because he had passed through them himself.
Of course, I saw that the letters were copied in the home papers, and before the circus season opened I had the Great American Public watching anxiously for the reported sailing of the Sacred White Elephant. "I should have been on my guard, for the Forepaugh bunch just kept sawing wood and saying nothing, but whenever I met their press agent he gave me the quiet laugh.
"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.
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