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The following is an old anecdote, but a good one. Sometime in the early 1900's, P. T. Barnum, the owner of the Barnum & Bailey circus and originator of the phrase "There's a sucker born every minute" offered $10,000 in cash to any person who could thoroughly dupe, or sucker, him.

Barnum was always looking for interesting new acts or novel creatures to exhibit, and one day he received a letter from a fellow in Maine who claimed to possess a cherry-colored cat and asked if Barnum were interested in such a thing for his circus. Barnum contacted the man and said yes, if the cat were truly cherry-colored, he'd gladly put it on display. Well, a few days later a crate marked "live animal" arrived for him. When Barnum opened it, he found a somewhat frightened but otherwise perfectly ordinary-looking black housecat inside, along with a note which read:

Maine cherries are black.
There's a sucker born every minute...

Thoroughly tickled, Barnum sent the man a check for $10,000. (I'm not sure what happened to the cat, I think Barnum may have kept it as a reminder of the day he got suckered.)

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