One night while I was carrying the candle in that scene a gust of wind from the wings made the flame gutter badly and a drop of hot grease fell on my hand. Instinctively I jumped and shook my hand without thinking what I was doing. There was a perfect gale of laughter from the house. After that, I always pretended to drop the grease on my hand, always gave the little jump, and always got my laugh. As I say, nearly everybody liked that scene. I was myself so girlish that it never struck anybody as particularly suggestive or immodest until one night an old couple from the country came to see the opera and created a mild sensation by getting up and going out in the middle of it. The old man was heard to say, as he hustled his meek spouse up the aisle of the opera house: "Mary, we'd better get out of this! It may be all right for city folks, but it's no place for us. We may be green; but, by cracky,--we're _decent_!" CHAPTER X ANOTHER SEASON AND A LITTLE MORE SUCCESS One of the pleasant affairs that came my way that year was Sir Morton Peto's banquet in October. Sir Morton was a distinguished Englishman who represented big railway interests in Great Britain and who was then negotiating some new and important railroading schemes on this side of the water. There were two hundred and fifty guests; practically everybody present, except my mother and myself, standing for some large financial power of the United States. I felt much complimented at being invited, for it was at a period when very great developments were in the making. America was literally teeming with new projects and plans and embryonic interests. The banquet was given at Delmonico's, then at Fifth Avenue and Fourteenth Street, and the rooms were gorgeous in their drapings of American and English flags. The war was about drawing to its close and patriotism was at white heat. The influential Americans were in the mood to wave their banners and to exchange amenities with foreign potentates. Sir Morton was a noted capitalist and his banquet was a sort of "hands across the sea" festival. He used, I recall, to stop at the Clarendon, now torn down and its site occupied by a commercial "sky scraper," but then the smart hostelry of the town. I sang that night after dinner. My services had not been engaged professionally, so, when Sir Morton wanted to reward me lavishly, I of course did not care to have him do so. We were still so new to _prime donne_ in New York that we had no social code or precedent to refer to with regard to them; and I preferred, personally, to keep the episode on a purely friendly and social basis. I was an invited guest only who had tried to do her part for the entertainment of the others. I was honoured, too. It was an experience to which anyone could look back with pride and pleasure.