P. T. Barnum：Struggles and Triumphs, Additional Excerpt 13

We put up at the Bull’s Head Tavern, where we were to stay a week while the drover was disposing of his cattle, and we were then to return home in a sleigh. It was an eventful week for me. Before I left home my mother had given me a dollar which I supposed would supply every want that heart could wish. My first outlay was for oranges which I was told were four pence apiece, and as “four-pence” in Connecticut was six cents, I offered ten cents for two oranges which was of course readily taken; and thus, instead of saving two cents, as I thought, I actually paid two cents more than the price demanded. I then bought two more oranges, reducing my capital to eighty cents. Thirty-one cents was the “charge” for a small gun which would “go off” and send a stick some little distance, and this gun I bought. Amusing myself with this toy in the bar-room of the Bull’s Head, the arrow happened to hit the barkeeper, who forthwith came from behind the counter and shook me and soundly boxed my ears, telling me to put that gun out of the way or he would put it into the fire. I sneaked to my room, put my treasure under the pillow, and went out for another visit to the toy shop.

Source： https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/50115
Locator：Additional excerpt 13 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Short excerpt

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