I was not in a position to give gratuities to all who, in my opinion, deserved them. But John O'Molloy, the gasman of the Opera-house, had stood by me manfully in all my troubles; and I could not leave without making him a small present. In doing so I rendered the poor fellow a truly tragic service; inasmuch as, for the sake of the twenty-five dollar note which I gave him, he was the same evening robbed and murdered.
On the whole, though in the midst of my difficulties I had been worried a little by interviewers, the San Francisco papers gave me good words at parting. One of them explained my pecuniary failure not by the scandal which Ravelli's conduct had caused, but by my having played to popular prices, instead of the exceptionally high ones which I had charged when the year before Patti was singing for me, and receiving at the time payment at the rate of £1,000 a night.
"Opera," said the journal in question, "is regarded as a luxury, to enjoy which its votaries are willing to pay liberally. High prices are its illusion, and when put down to current rates the romance of the thing is destroyed. Mapleson did not appear to understand this, and his deficiency of the knowledge has caused him to leave us almost a bankrupt by his San Francisco venture. It is admitted on all hands that he had a splendid troupe, but the fact of his performing to what are known as popular prices, and complications arising with certain members of his troupe, seem to deprive him of his usual success."
"By the way," said a writer in the paper called Truth, "I notice that Mapleson is said to be indebted to Ravelli for 6,000 dollars, though an artist notoriously never permits an impresario to owe him more than a few performances. [It was proved in Court that I owed him nothing.] At home, as everybody knows, in their own country they receive in about a year as much as they are paid in a month in America, the streets of which the average Italian singer imagines to be paved with gold coins. As to the success or failure of the venture of the impresario they are supremely indifferent, but pertinaciously continue to demand the utmost farthing, no matter how badly things may be going. Lyric artists are, as a rule, the most grossly ignorant people on all subjects, except their own special art, and money. They are intensely conceited and abominably selfish, and regard an impresario as their natural prey. The sums that Ravelli has received from Mapleson in the last few years are beyond question sufficient to maintain the tenor in comfort and luxury for the rest of his life. Yet the moment he fails to receive his quid pro quo he refuses to render his services, denouncing his manager as a swindler, and abandons him at a moment when by loyalty and a little patience he could have aided in relieving the ill-fortune which must inevitably be anticipated in operatic affairs. Of course on general commercial principles the labourer is worthy of his hire; but in operatic matters the hire is, as a rule, so entirely out of proportion to the services rendered, and the conditions of the enterprise so unlike any other venture, that a little latitude certainly ought to be allowed."
I found on my arrival at Chicago that one of the Chicago papers had, at the beginning of my troubles, published the following telegram from its correspondent at San Francisco:—
"Mapleson is fighting his last week of opera at San Francisco in the teeth of dissensions, his first tenor having published a card to the purport that Mapleson had not fulfilled his obligations with him, and that he would not sing unless he published an announcement over his own name. The San Francisco Chronicle, the leading paper, therefore calls on all music lovers to rally in force for Mapleson's benefit on the 16th. The absurd prices Mapleson pays his operatic cut-throats makes the opera business a ruinous one. Covered with trophies and a due proportion of scars from his many campaigns, Mapleson will march his forces into Chicago to-morrow, Sunday, bivouacing for the night at the Chicago Opera-house, where his principal members will be heard in a sacred concert.
"The different performances given, notwithstanding all these operatic troubles, have been of that high standard which Mapleson alone has ever presented to us. Mapleson remains with us another week. Such performances as he has given are in but few places to be found. No Opera Company existing to-day has a better troupe of singers. There appears to exist a general impression among certain of the newspapers that Colonel Mapleson is operatically dead, and entirely out of the hunt. By his advent here, he proves to the public that he is still on deck."
My plan of retreat was well devised, and with a little good luck might have been thoroughly successful. As it was, it at least enabled us, without too much delay, to reach New York, and from New York to take ship for Liverpool.
Unable to command the railroad in a direct way from Frisco to New York, I determined to undertake a series of engagements at certain selected points all along the line. If the first of these proved successful I should be in a better position for my second encounter. It was certain in any case that at each fresh city I should be able to levy contributions; and with the money thus raised I could lay in a new stock of provisions and continue my advance by rail in the direction of New York, ready to stop at the first city whose population and resources might make it worth my while to do so.
Going back a little I must here explain that before leaving San Francisco, in order that Mdme. Minnie Hauk might be fresh for the proposed performance at Omaha, I had sent her on two days in advance—a distance of not more than 1,867 miles; whilst Mdme. Nordica was placed at another strategical point 2,500 miles away, at Minneapolis. She had to attend her sick mother, but was prepared to rejoin us when called upon to do so. Mdlle. Alma Fohström, not having sufficiently recovered from her late indisposition, was left behind at San Francisco, 2,400 miles from the scene of my next operations.