A Curse Turns to Blessing

Early this morning two men came to the house, and asked if they could speak to Abigail and I. We invited them in, Abigail made some coffee and took some cornbread from the pantry, and we all sat down in the living room, sending the children out to play. Abigail and I were apprehensive. Neither of us had any idea what these men could want.
The man who seemed to be the more authoritative of the two, had a sinister looking goatee. He continually curled it with his finger as he spoke. His eyes were dark and peered at us from beneath the brim of a tall top hat. He was dressed in a lavish suit of black and red. He wore a monocle over his left eye, carried a cane, and was followed everywhere by a long flowing cape.
The other gentlemen was of considerably lesser stature. In my mind, I likened him to the Irish children tails of the leprechauns. For his comfort we provided him with the largest book we could find to sit on. Yet despite his lack of height there was something very intimidating in his eyes.
I think Abigail and I both feared that these gentlemen were here for no good purpose. We were wrong.
They belonged to a carnival that traveled the coutry to entertain people. They had been in our town, and had heard about Isaac-Albert, and wished to purchase him for their show. They offered us $75 and a pony as consilation.
The men were very humane and helpful. The tall, dark man had a bottle of what he called diethyl ether*. He told me to put some on a cloth and hold it over Isaac-Albert's mouth for a couple seconds, but no more than two or I might kill him. Isaac-Albert fell asleep almost immediately, we locked him in his box, and loaded him on to their cart.
William and Elizabeth had a wonderful afternoon riding the pony.

*Diethyl ether, first synthesized by Valerius Cordus in 1540, was first used as a general anesthetic in 1842 by Crawford Williamson Long, M.D.