I wrote to Mdme. Patti the following day, entreating her not further to disappoint the public, and to stand by the announcement Signor Nicolini had given me of her appearance the following Tuesday in Il Barbiere. To this I had no reply; and I afterwards learned that Mdme. Patti had gone off by a special morning train to Wales, to avoid meeting the chorus and employés who, hearing of her probable flight, had assembled in large bodies at Paddington to give her a manifestation of their disapprobation.
I was now placed in a most difficult position, and left to struggle on as best I could, having some three weeks' rent still to pay for the use of the theatre until the end of the month; together with the salaries of singers, choristers, bill-posters, supernumeraries, orchestra, etc., etc. These unfortunate people were actually following me in the street, clamouring for money. There were, moreover, some sixty Italian choristers, whose travelling expenses had to be provided for to send them home to Italy. In fact the Opera Colonnade had become a regular Babel, and it was only by dint of hard work amongst my numerous friends that I was enabled to collect funds and see the last of my chorus singers depart.
This affair threw me into contact with several supernumeraries as well as bill-board men, and I was very much interested to hear their different histories. One man, who had been a "Sandwich," gave me the following account of his life:—
THE "SANDWICH'S" STORY.
"I was formerly," he said, "a captain in the—— Regiment, and many a time have I paid my six guineas for a box at your Opera, both in Edinburgh and in London. Subsequently I began to take a great interest in the turf, and soon met with heavy losses, which compelled me to give various promissory notes. This at last came to the knowledge of my colonel, who recommended me to leave the regiment without delay. Having nothing to live upon, and being a fair performer on the cornet à piston, I joined a travelling circus, and ultimately came across your Opera Company in Philadelphia, where I was one of your stage band. Later on I joined a party who were bound for the diamond fields in South Africa, where I was most unsuccessful; and I had to work my passage home in a sailing ship, till I got to London, where I became a supernumerary under your management at Drury Lane.
"During your third season an aunt of mine died, and I found myself the possessor of £10,000. My cousin, who was largely interested in building operations, which he assured me paid him at least 60 per cent., induced me to place half my fortune in his speculations. His houses were in the west part of London, which had been considerably overbuilt; and being mortgaged they would have been lost but for my paying away the remainder of my fortune with the view of saving them. In spite of this the mortgagee foreclosed, and I again became a supernumerary, when, in the mimic fight in the second act of Trovatore, one of my companions by mere accident with a point of a spear put my eye out.
"I was now no longer qualified for engagement even as a supernumerary, and I became a 'sandwich' man. My duties during the last four and a half years have been to parade Bond Street and Regent Street, receiving as payment ninepence a day."
On my handing the poor man his salary and settling up he at first declined to take the money, saying that I had done him so many kindnesses at different periods of his life that now, when I was in trouble myself, he could not think of taking his week's pay. I, however, not only insisted upon his accepting it, but gave him a sovereign for himself. The unfortunate gentleman, as he showed himself to the last, went away blessing me.
CHAPTER XVI.
MASTER AND MAN—"DON GIOVANNI" CENTENARY—MOZART AND PARNELL—BURSTING OF "GILDA"—COLONEL STRACEY AND THE DEMONS—THE HAWK'S MOUNTAIN FLIGHT—AMBITIOUS STUDENTS AND INDIGENT PROFESSORS—A SCHOOL FOR OPERA—ANGLICIZED FOREIGNERS—ITALIANIZED ENGLISHMEN.