Terry knew ten times as much about the business as Barnum did, and knowing, also, that the old stock was comparatively worthless, held back while Barnum was urging him to push ahead with the manufacturing.

Terry made a great bluster, saying that he was going to hire men and do a great business, while, unknown to Barnum, he was trying to sell the stock he held in the company.

They finally cooked up a plan to sell their New York store and the Bridgeport factory and machinery, if they could, to the Jerome Manufacturing Company, taking stock in that company for pay, and--the Jerome Company stock being issued to the owners of the Terry & Barnum stock--thus merge the two companies into one.

This transaction was made and closed without my knowledge, (I being at the time from the State,) though the "old man" has had to bear all the blame.

As I afterwards found out, Barnum told my son, the Secretary of the Company, that Terry & Barnum owed about twenty thousand dollars: this was the amount Terry had drawn for on the New York store.