Although the date was 9 October, it was the hottest night of the summer, as luck would have it. The Metropolitan Opera House is denied the benefit of modern air-conditioning; the temperature within its hallowed walls, thanks to the mass of humanity and the lights, was many degrees above that of the humid blanket outside. Despite all this, so long as I shall live, I shall never forget the stirring round of applause that greeted that distinguished figure, Constant Lambert, as he entered the orchestra pit to lead the orchestra in the two anthems, the Star Spangled Banner and God Save the King. The audience resumed their seats; there was a bated pause, and then from the pit came the first notes of the overture to _The Sleeping Beauty_, under the sympathetic baton of that finest of ballet conductors. So long as I shall live I shall never forget the deafening applause as the curtains opened on the first of Oliver Messel’s sets and costumes. That applause, which was repeated and repeated--for Fonteyn’s entrance, increasing in its roar until, at the end, Dame Ninette had to make a little speech, against her will--still rings in my ears. I have had the privilege of handling the world’s greatest artists and most distinguished attractions; my career has been punctuated with stirring opening performances of my own, and I have been at others quite as memorable. However, so far as the quality of the demonstrations and the manifestations of enthusiasm are concerned, the _première_ of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet at the Metropolitan Opera House, on 9 October, 1949, was the most outstanding of my entire experience. Dame Ninette de Valois, outwardly as calm as ever, but, I suspect, inwardly a mass of conflicting emotions, was seated in the box with Mayor O’Dwyer. As the curtains closed on the first act of _The Sleeping Beauty_, and the tremendous roar of cheers and applause rose from the packed house, the Mayor laid his hand on “Madame’s” arm and said, “Lady, you’re _in_!” Crisply and a shade perplexed, “Madame” replied: “In?... Really?” Genuinely puzzled now, she tried unsuccessfully to translate to herself what this could mean. “Strange language,” she thought, “I’m _in_?... In what?... What on earth does that mean?” We met in the interval. I grasped her hand in sincere congratulation. She patted me absently as she smiled. Then she turned and spoke. “Look here,” she said, “could you translate for me, please, something His Lordship just said to me as the curtain fell? Put it into English, I mean?” It was my turn to be puzzled. “Madame” was, I thought, seated with Mayor O’Dwyer. Had she wandered about, moved to another box? “His Lordship?” “Yes, yes, of course. Your Lord Mayor, with whom I am sitting.” I hadn’t thought of O’Dwyer in terms of a peer.