With some of my singers ill in bed, others quarrelling and fighting among themselves on the public stage, my Company got the credit of being entirely disorganized, and at every fresh city we visited our receipts became smaller and smaller. The expenditure meanwhile in salaries, travelling expenses, law costs, and hotel bills was something enormous. The end of it all was that at San Francisco we found ourselves defeated and compelled to seek safety in flight.
We did our best at one final performance to get in a little money with which to begin the retreat; and I must frankly admit that the hotel-keepers on whom the various members of my Company were at this time quartered did their very best to push the sale of tickets, for in that alone lay their hope of getting their bills paid.
It has been seen that at one time I was threatened with a complete break-up: my forces seemed on the point of dispersing.
I succeeded, however, in keeping the Company together with the exception only of Ravelli, Cherubini, and Mdlle. Devigne, who afterwards started to give representations on their own account, and soon found themselves in a worse plight than even their former associates who had the loyalty and the sense to remain with me. After much aimless rambling they turned their heads towards New York, which, in the course of two months, they contrived by almost superhuman efforts to reach.
Before leaving, Ravelli, as I have shown, dealt me a treacherous blow by getting an embargo laid on my music as if to secure him payment of money due, but which was proved not to be owing as soon as the matter was brought before the Court. That there may be no mistake on this point I will here give exact reproductions of Ravelli's claim as set forth in due legal form, and of my reply thereto. Apart from the substance of the case, it will interest the reader to see that an American brief bears but little resemblance to the ponderous document known by that name in England. An American lawyer sets forth in plain direct language what in England would be concealed beneath a mass of puzzling and almost unintelligible verbiage. I may add that law papers in America are not pen-written but type-written, being thus made clear not only to the mind, but also to the eye. In America a lawyer arrives in Court with a few type-written papers in the breast-pocket of his coat. In England he would be attended by an unhappy boy groaning beneath the weight of a whole mass of scribbled paper divided into numerous parcels, each one tied up with red tape.
I will now give the documents in the case of Ravelli against Mapleson, which, after being heard, was dismissed, but which, in spite of the admirable rapidity of American law proceedings, caused me several days' delay, and, as a result, incalculable losses; for apart from the sudden rise in the railway rates I missed engagements at several important cities along my line of march.
"Superior Court City and County of San Francisco,
State of California.
"LUIGI RAVELLI, Plaintiff, v. J. H. MAPLESON,
Defendant.
"Complaint.
"Plaintiff above named complains of defendant above named, and for cause of action alleges:
"That between the 4th day of February 1886, and the 4th day of April 1886 the Plaintiff rendered services to the defendant at said defendant's special instance and request, in the capacity of an Opera singer.
"That for said services the said defendant promised to pay plaintiff a salary at the rate of twenty-four hundred dollars per month.