elf were all invited. Just as we
were seating ourselves, the _Schauspiel Regisseur_, Herr S----, noticed
that there were thirteen at table. He turned as white as a sheet, jumped
up, and scarcely stopping to apologize, hurriedly left the room, nor
could he be prevailed upon to return, although the director followed him
into the hall to remonstrate. He protested that one of our number was
certain to die within the year as it was, and he wished to insure its
not being himself by refusing to sit down at all. Curiously enough, his
prophecy came true, for the Director's young step-daughter died very
suddenly soon after.

Herr S---- was a most unpleasant person, as I discovered later, and I
was always thankful that my identification with the _Opern-Personal_
kept me out of his way. He had a sort of spurious veneer and
ingratiating manner, which was at variance with his hard, square,
passion-scarred countenance. He pretended an enormous admiration for the
American woman, and that very day before luncheon, he showed me with
great pride a small American-made patent-leather shoe, which he took out
of the tail pocket of his frock-coat, telling me with a leer that it
belonged to a girl of _my_ country, where the women had the most
beautiful feet in the world, and that it was his talisman and never left
him! He bore a bad name among the women players in the company. One of
the little actresses, a girl of good family, in her first season, used
to tell me unpleasant tales of him in her rapid, ungrammatical French,
whenever I met her; and she always referred to him as "That beast!"

Our Heldentenor of that season was an uninteresting personage, a quite
elderly man of enormous routine and mediocre equipment, who had sung in
all sorts of opera houses and was on the last lap of a long career. He
was said to be nearly sixty, and was quite bald, but he managed to make
a surprisingly youthful appearance on the stage. He had been at it so
long that he could make an attempt at acting almost anything--even
youth. His sprightly legs in "Fra Diavolo" were quite adolescent. He
kept himself discreetly to himself, and was never seen in the cafes, nor
on the streets with his colleagues.

His greatest joy was a tiny dog, whose tricks he delighted to show off
to every one. The little thing would whine for a soprano, growl for a
bass, howl for a tenor, bark when told "The Direktor's coming," and sit
up and beg at the word _Gage_ (salary,) in a very amu