Their first venture at a showman’s life was to exhibit the model and paintings, and they hired a donkey-cart and set off to Aberdare. When they got there the showman wrote to me, “I am sure you would have been amused if you had been there to have seen us; for when we had our establishment erected—which, by the way, was very small—we were too shy at first to make an appearance outside; at last we made a resolution, and began to shout. So we found out after we had broken the ice that we were landed. On the first night we took enough to pay our month’s rent. This gave us encouragement. We made a good many friends, and I became notorious among my fellow workmen. They thought me an extraordinary man. In three years I painted in oil colours thirteen pictures, three feet square, of the interior of a coal-mine and different other subjects. . . . The waxwork show owners we had accompanied left Wales for London. Afterwards my wife went to Bristol and bought a barrel organ, and I had what we thought a very nice little show, and a nice van and horse. But alas! we did not know what travelling in the winter meant. We found very soon that we could not show every night on account of the weather, and also found that we could not get any credit. If we had no money there was no bread. I shall never forget the first night we got ‘hard up.’ Dear sir, just fancy yourself going into a large town about eight o’clock at night, and the rain coming down in torrents in the cold January month; the houses shining with wet, and a horse to be fed and stabled—for we kept it in a stable then—and six children to get a supper for, let alone yourself, and not a penny in your pocket, and not a friend in the world to speak to or to give you counsel. Well, that is just how we were situated in the first January that we travelled. Dear sir, perhaps you would say, ‘Why did you not make for your home?’ That would have been the wisest plan, but we thought we would endure anything rather than go back to be laughed at. Well, after my good wife had had a good cry, we went to the pawnbroker’s and pledged my watch, thinking that we should be able to redeem it again in a few weeks. We borrowed fifteen shillings, so that with opening the show we could be helped on for a few weeks, instead of which we met with a worse misfortune than ever. We lost our horse at Pontypool. We pledged our organ for £2, and then trailed our van to Swansea for Llanefni fair, thinking we should get money enough to buy another. More next week. The children all send their love to you, wishing you a merry Christmas.”