Next year Foote called his performance "An Auction of Pictures." Here is one of his advertisements: "At the forty-ninth day's sale at his auction rooms in the Haymarket Mr. Foote will exhibit a choice collection of pictures--some new lots, consisting of a poet, a beau, a Frenchman, a miser, a taylor, a sot, two young gentlemen, and a ghost. Two of which are originals, the rest copies from the best masters." In this several well-known characters were mimicked--Sir Thomas Deveil, then the acting magistrate for Westminster, Cook, the auctioneer, and orator Henley. To the attractions of his "Auction," in ridicule of the Italian Opera, he gave a "Cat Concert." The principal performer in this was a man well known at the time by the name of Cat Harris. Harris had attended several rehearsals, where his _mewing_ gave great satisfaction to the manager and performers. However, on the last rehearsal Harris was missing, and as nobody knew where he lived, Shuter was deputed to find him, if possible. He inquired in vain for some time; at last he was informed that he lived in a certain court in the Minories, but at which house he could not exactly learn. Shuter entered the court and set up a cat solo, which instantly roused his brother musician in his garret, who answered him in the same tune. "Ho, ho! Are you there, my friend?" said Shuter. "Come along; the stage waits for you." Fashion, as usual, flocked to the Haymarket to hear and see its tastes turned into ridicule. At the close of the season (1748) Foote was left a considerable fortune by a relative of his mother, which enabled him to move in all that luxury of dissipation which was so congenial to his temper. Then he departed suddenly for Paris and communicated with none of his friends. Some supposed him to have been killed in a duel, some that he had been hanged, some that he had drunk himself to death. But he reappeared in London at the close of the season of 1752, having dissipated the fortune left him, but having enriched his mind with studies made in France. He brought with him a play he had composed, _The Englishman in Paris_, which was brought out at Covent Garden Theatre on March 24th, 1753, and it proved a success; so much so, that Murphy, the dramatic author, wrote a sequel to it, _The Englishman returned from Paris_, which he had the frankness to show to Foote, who was his friend. Foote, without a word, without asking leave, appropriated the plot and characters, and turned out a farce with the same title before Murphy had placed his. Murphy was, naturally, highly offended, and produced his play in another theatre, but without great success, as Foote's play had already taken with the public.