sing way, and his
master was intensely proud of his accomplishments.

The lyric tenor of the first season was a peasant from Swabia, with a
droll accent and a lovely voice which he forced in a most agonizing
manner. He would shake all over when he sang a high note, and yet his
natural voice ranged easily to high D sharp--I have even heard him sing
an E. His dialect and his ignorance made him the butt of the company,
but he was very goodnatured and took it all in good part. He used to
say: "Yes, I know--my wife is a French woman and she tells me to say
_Mignon_, but I'm a peasant--I say _Mischnong_." She was years older
than he and of better class. She had helped him to the little study that
he had had, and out of gratitude he had married her, but they were said
to disagree very consistently.

The Heldenbariton was quite a nice fellow, big and burly with a good
voice; he was a great favourite with the public, whom he had pleased by
marrying, out of the chorus, a townswoman who adored him.

The second Kapellmeister was a vague, weak creature, henpecked by his
vain little wife who was never happy unless she was the centre of some
one's admiration. She was inordinately proud of her small feet, and our
little friend the lyric baritone used to make her furious, by insisting
that mine were smaller! Her dream was to go on the stage too, if only to
sing pages in "Lohengrin" and "Tannhaeuser," and later her hope was
realized, I heard, when several of them went off together in April to a
"Monatsoper" on the _Russische Grenze_ (Russian Frontier). The
coloratura soprano was a Dutch woman, speaking German with more accent
than I did. She was very fair, very fat, and very lazy, and she had a
capacity for food that I have seen equalled but never surpassed. She
dined with us daily, and woe to the person who had to serve himself from
a dish that had been passed to her! Eat until you could hold no more was
a part of the creed of all my colleagues. Anything short of absolute
repletion, and the meal was considered a failure. "_Sind Sie satt?_"
They would ask each other gravely--"_Ich bin nicht satt!_" Meaning
literally, "Are you full?" "_I_ am _not_ full." And this was a grave
cause of resentment against the hotel management. I must say that most
of them reached this desirable consummation long before the coloratura
soprano, for she continued placidly as long as there was any food in
sight. She would even finish anything left on another's