On the 25th March a morning performance was given of _Lucia di Lammermoor_, when the Academy was fairly packed from _parquet_ to gallery by a most fashionable audience, not so much to hear _Lucia_ as to hear Mdme. Gerster. At the rush at the opening of the doors the ticket-taker discovered a forged free pass purporting to bear my name. On his own responsibility he handed over to the police the two men who had come in with the ticket, and they were taken off to the police-station, where I was immediately sent for. The forgery being proved they were both committed for trial, the magistrate at the same time notifying that if we took them up at once in an elevated train to Ninety-second Street the assizes would be on, and their case could be at once decided. They were duly taken on, and the matter gone into. One of the men was committed to prison for a year, and the other one was placed under the care of the Commissioners of Charities and Corrections for two years on Randall's Island. I got back to the Academy in time to hear the mad scene. On returning the following year I made inquiry as to the man who had been sent to the Reformatory, and was informed that he had died only the day before. So also had the judge of the Assize Court: a remarkable coincidence. We remained in New York until the 9th April, when we were again called to Boston to give six performances, each of which averaged $5,000. After a _matinée_ on the Saturday we returned to New York by special train, in order to give a Sunday concert, when over 4,000 dollars were taken at the doors. We then gave six more extra farewell performances in New York, sailing for Europe immediately on the conclusion of the last one, and arriving in London about six days prior to the opening of my season. Early in the spring of 1881 I received a communication from Messrs. Ricordi, of Milan, the publishers and proprietors of Boito's _Mefistofele_, in which they solicited me to allow Signor Nannetti, the basso, who was then performing the title _rôle_ at the Scala, to delay his engagement with me for the period of a fortnight, in order that the successful run of the work might not be interrupted; in exchange for which they offered me the services of the musical director, Signor Faccio. To this I consented, and the eminent conductor was duly announced in my prospectus. But instead of keeping Nannetti two weeks in Milan they kept him five, during which time my season had opened and Mdme. Nilsson had arrived in London in order that I might take up the successful run of _Mefistofele_ which had been interrupted only by the close of the previous season. Mdme. Nilsson, however, refused to appear until Nannetti came; and it was not until the 23rd June that I could reproduce Boito's _Mefistofele_. Faccio never turned up at all. CHAPTER XVII.