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1 Prologue:PlayingthePalace  C harles Stratton raced down the long, glittering halls. The two men with him walked steadily, even formally, but his tiny legs could barely keep up, even at a run. One man was his mentor and manager, Phineas Taylor Barnum, who towered over Charles by almost four feet, though he himself was not unusually tall. Both were common Connecticut Yankees, but if either felt nervous at being in Buckingham Palace they did not show it. This was one thing for a confident showman who knew well the humbugs hidden behind the glitter. But for a child who had stopped growing after a few months of life, and now stood only two feet high and weighed only fifteen pounds, it was a miracle. The showman and the child had not been in England long. Arriving in Liverpool on the transatlantic steamer Yorkshire after a grueling nineteen-­ day journey from New York, accompanied by Charles’s parents and a tutor, they had subsequently given scattered exhibitions in Liverpool and London to limited success. After all, there were dozens of “dwarfs” exhibiting around the lush green countryside and blackened factory towns of England. But P. T. Barnum never shrank from a challenge, and tried a new approach, renting the former home of Lord Talbot at 13 Grafton Street, in London’s wealthy West End. From this prominent address he sent formal invitations to aristocrats, newspapers , and politicians to visit “General Tom Thumb, the celebrated American dwarf.” The ploy proved irresistible. A reporter from The Patriot visited him at Grafton Street, writing of Charles: “He is playful in his manner, acute in all his answers, very observant of all that passes or is said before him, and takes part in light conversation and even vouchsafes to be jocular.” They also noted that the boy was not sickly, seemingly surprised that “he possesses great strength for his stature.”1 One of the first aristocrats to take the bait and invite Charles and Barnum to her London home was the Baroness Charlotte de Roth- b e c o m i n g t o m t h u m b 2 schild. Her open carriage picked them up at Grafton Street and drove the pair to the imposing mansion at 148 Piccadilly, where servants ushered them upstairs to a drawing-­ room. The Baroness and twenty friends received them, and under the glare of candelabra, Charles danced a hornpipe that he had learned aboard ship, and sang in his unearthly treble voice. For their trouble, a “well-­ filled purse” was slipped into Barnum’s hand.Word got around, and more wealthy Londoners invited them to their homes.2 But it was the American ambassador, Edward Everett, who held the key to everlasting fame and riches. Barnum brought a letter of introduction to Everett, and he and Charles dined with the ambassador on March 2, 1844. Everett wrote that he had “General Tom Thumb to lunch with us to the great amusement of the whole family and household. A most curious little man. Should he live and his mind become improved, he will be a very wonderful personage.” A few days later, on March 8. Everett invited both “Tom Thumb” and the master of the Queen’s household, Mr. Charles Murray, to his home.3 Barnum knew this might be a scouting mission for Murray, and mentioned casually that he was thinking of taking “the General” to Paris to meet with Louis-­ Philippe, the French king. The stratagem clearly worked, because the next day they were invited to a “command performance ” at Buckingham Palace, and as Murray told them, Queen Victoria wanted to make sure “that the General appear before her, as he would appear anywhere else, without training in the use of titles of royalty.” She “desired to see him act naturally and without restraint.” After spending the next two weeks using this royal request to gain entrance to more houses of the British peerage, on March 23 Barnum shrewdly put up an apologetic placard at the entrance to the Egyptian Hall where Charles had been performing. It read, “Closed the evening, General Tom Thumb being at Buckingham Palace by command of her Majesty.”4 Now, in Buckingham Palace, Murray led the two Americans through the gleaming corridors and up a marble staircase. Ahead, two dozen people gathered in a long, glass-­roofed picture gallery, all in the finest clothing money could buy, and sparkling with diamonds. The exception was the twenty-­ four-­ year...

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