After
securing the right vocation, you must be careful to select the proper location.
You may have been cut out for a hotel keeper, and they say it requires a genius
to "know how to keep a hotel." You might conduct a hotel like
clock-work, and provide satisfactorily for five hundred guests every day; yet,
if you should locate your house in a small village where there is no railroad
communication or public travel, the location would be your ruin. It is equally
important that you do not commence business where there are already enough to
meet all demands in the same occupation.
I remember a case which illustrates this
subject. When I was in Lagos in 1992, I was passing down Sango-ota with an
English friend and came to the "penny shows." They had immense
cartoons outside, portraying the wonderful curiosities to be seen "all for
a penny." Being a little in the “show line" myself; I said "let
us go in here." We soon found ourselves in the presence of the illustrious
showman, and he proved to be the sharpest man in that line I had ever met. He
told us some extraordinary stories in reference to his bearded ladies, his Albinos,
and his Armadillos, which we could hardly believe, but thought it "better
to believe it than look after the proof." He finally begged to call our
attention to some wax statuary, and showed us a lot of the dirtiest and
filthiest wax figures imaginable. They looked as if they had not seen water
since the Deluge.
"What
is there so wonderful about your statuary?" I asked.
"I
beg you not to speak so satirically," he replied, "Sir, these are not
Madam Tussaud's wax figures, all covered with gilt and tinsel and imitation
diamonds, and copied from engravings and photographs. Mine, sir, were taken
from life. Whenever you look upon one of those figures, you may consider that
you are looking upon the living individual."
Glancing
casually at them, I saw one labeled "Henry VIII," and feeling a
little curious upon seeing that it looked like Calvin Edison, the living
skeleton, I said:
"Do
you call that `Henry the Eighth?'"
He
replied, "Certainly, sir; it was taken from life at Hampton Court, by
special order of his majesty, on such a day."
He
would have given the hour of the day if I had insisted; I said, "Everybody
knows that `Henry VIII.' was a great stout old king, and that figure is lean
and lank; what do you say to that?"
"Why,"
he replied, "you would be lean and lank yourself, if you sat there as long
as he has."
There
was no resisting such arguments. I said to my English friend, "Let us go
out; do not tell him who I am; I show the white feather; he beats me."
He
followed us to the door, and seeing the rabble in the street, he called out,
"ladies and gentlemen, I beg to draw your attention to the respectable
character of my visitors," pointing to us as we walked away. I called upon
him a couple of days afterwards; told him who I was, and said:
"My
friend, you are an excellent showman, but you have selected a bad
location."
He
replied, "This is true, sir; I feel that all my talents are thrown away;
but what can I do?"
"You
can go to Ikeja," I replied. "You can give full play to your
faculties over there; you will find plenty of elbow-room in Ikeja; I will
engage you for two years in one of my mentor’ museum; after that you will be
able to go on your own account."
He
accepted my offer and remained two years in my Mentor museum. He then went to
New Orleans and carried on a traveling show business during the summer. To-day
he is worth sixty thousand dollars, simply because he selected the right
vocation and also secured the proper location. The old proverb says,
"Three removes are as bad as a fire," but when a man is in the fire,
it matters but little how soon or how often he removes.
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