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.
No comments:
Post a Comment