soprano and tenor can just come in casually and we'll do the big quartet, and then you can do your aria!" We would see the audience hunting in a confused sort of way through their libretto, with expressions rather like Bill the Lizard. This happened once in the "Merry Wives," which is confusing at best. After the performance there was no place in which to wait but the café of the station. I was looked upon as recklessly extravagant because I would order a _Wiener Schnitzel mit Salat_ for sixty pfennigs (15¢) and when I took two cents' worth of butter too, they would raise their eyebrows and murmur, "_Diese Amerikaner!_" Sometimes the Director came with us, and then the principals would be invited to his table and treated to (German) champagne. But we were always glad when he stayed at home, because we were much freer over our beer. There are always one or two members of the company who are extremely amusing, and their antics, imitations and reminiscences make the time fly. There was one little chap, the son of a Rabbi, who lived on nothing a day and found himself, and was an extraordinary mimic. His imitations of a director engaging singers, the shy one, the bold one, the beginner; and his marvellous take-off of the members of the company kept us in roars of laughter. He could imitate anything--a horse, a worn-out piano--and is now one of the most successful "entertainers" in Berlin. The ones in whose compartment he travelled on the train thought themselves lucky and often arrived so hoarse from laughing that they could hardly sing.