Suddenly, there came a series of piercing screams emanating from an upper floor dressing-room. Haunted by visions of the Phantom of the Opera, I rushed up the stairs to find Clavia lying on the floor, obviously in pain. We managed to get her down to Fokina’s room and placed her on the couch in what was known in Philadelphia as “Caruso’s Room,” the star dressing-room Fokina was using. As we entered, Fokina stood ready to go on stage, costumed for _The Dying Swan_. The situation was obvious. Clavia was about to give birth to a child. The labor pains had commenced. I pushed Vera on to the stage and Marie Volpe into the room--in the nick of time. Mrs. Volpe, a concert singer, pinch-hitting as a maid for Vera, now turned midwife for the first time in her life. By the time the ambulance and the doctor arrived, mother and infant were doing as well as could be expected. Next morning Mrs. Volpe found herself a new role. A lady of high moral scruples, herself a mother, she had realized that no one had mentioned a father for the child. Mrs. Volpe had assumed the role of detective (a dangerous one, I assure the reader, in ballet), and was determined to run down the child’s father. The newspaper stories, with the headline: “_CHILD BORN IN CARUSO’S DRESSING ROOM_,” had not been too reassuring to Mrs. Volpe. I counselled her that she would be well advised to let the matter drop. On our arrival in Baltimore, I was greeted by the news that my rubber-wizard of a local manager, the bouncing Mr. K., had decamped with the box-office sale, leaving behind only some rubber cheques. This, in itself, I felt was enough for one day. But it was not to be. Vera, as curtain time approached, once again was up to her usual business of exhibiting “temperament,” spoiling her life, as she so often did in this respect, throughout her dancing career. “What is it now?” I asked. She waxed wroth with great volubility and at considerable length, with profound indignation that the stage floor-cloth was, as she said, “impossible.” Nothing I could say was of any avail. Vera refused, absolutely, irrevocably, unconditionally, to dance. Mrs. Volpe was to help her into her street clothes, and at once. She would return to her hotel. She would return to New York. I must cancel the engagement, the tour, all because of the stage-cloth. And the audience was already filling the theatre. I thought quickly and went into action. Calling the head carpenter and the property man together, I got them to turn the floor-cloth round. Then, going back to the dressing-room, where Vera was preparing to leave, I succeeded in convincing her by showing her that it was an entirely new doth that we had just got for her happiness. Vera Fokina never danced better than that night in Baltimore.