At the stage door, without her bonnet, I met the tenor's charming wife, the only person, as a rule, who could control him in any way; and she entreated me not to go near him, or there would be bloodshed. I insisted, however, on going to his room without delay, as the curtain was still down and the public was getting tumultuous. I took the precaution of buttoning my overcoat across my chest, and in I went, my first words being-- "This time, Mongini, I hear you are right (_Questa volta sento che avete ragione_)." With this preliminary we got into conversation, but he still remained walking up and down the room with nothing but his shirt on and a drawn sword in his hand. I saw that I had to proceed very slowly with him, and began talking on indifferent matters. At last I asked him the details of all the trouble. He thereupon explained to me that the master tailor, who had been requested by him in the morning to widen his overcoat by two inches, had misunderstood, and contracted it by two inches. I wished to have a look at the dress, which, however, was lying on the floor torn to pieces. I assured Mongini that the man should be cruelly punished, and he and his family put upon the streets to starve early the next morning. He then got calmer, and I casually observed, "By-the-bye, is the opera over yet, Mongini?" to which he replied, "No, it is not." "Never mind that," I continued; "the public can wait. Everyone, by the way, is talking of the magnificent style in which you have been singing to-night." His eyes brightened, and he said he should like to go on with the opera. "Not at all a bad idea!" I remarked. "But I have no dress," said Mongini, rather sadly; "it is destroyed." I suggested that he should wear the dress of the second act, putting on the breastplate and the steel gorget with the hat and feathers, and he would then be all right, and "La Donna e Mobile" would make amends for the delay. He dressed and followed me to the stage, when I made the sign for the stage manager to ring up the curtain, greatly to the astonishment of Mongini's wife, who was fully expecting to hear that I had been run through the body. The next day at twelve o'clock, as per appointment, Mongini came to my office to be present at the punishment of the master tailor. I had taken the precaution to inform the tailor, who was a single man, that he had a wife and four children, and that he was to be sure and recollect this. I called him into my room in the presence of Mongini, and told him gravely that he with his wife and children must now starve. There was no alternative after the treatment Mongini had received the previous evening. Mongini at once supplicated me not to let the children die in the gutter, as it might injure him with the public, and he ended by promising that if I would retain the tailor in my service he would sing an extra night for nothing. CHAPTER VIII.