But it was above all the conflict between Ravelli and Minnie Hauk in _Carmen_ that did us harm, for the details of the affair soon got known and were at once reproduced in all the papers. It has been seen that Mr. von Wartegg found it necessary to bring Ravelli before the police magistrate and get him bound over on a very heavy penalty to keep the peace towards Mdme. von Wartegg, otherwise Mdme. Minnie Hauk; and the case, as a matter of course, was fully reported. What could the public think of an Opera Company in which the tenor was always threatening to murder the prima donna, while the prima donna's husband found himself forced to take up a position at one of the wings bearing a revolver with which he proposed to shoot the tenor the moment he showed the slightest intention of approaching the personage for whom he is supposed to entertain an ungovernable passion? "Don José" was, according to the opera, madly in love with "Carmen." But it was an understood thing between the singers impersonating these two characters that they were to keep at a respectful distance one from the other. Ravelli was afraid of Minnie Hauk's throttling him while engaged in the emission of a high B flat; and Minnie Hauk, on her side, dreaded the murderous knife with which Ravelli again and again had threatened her. Love-making looks, under such conditions, a little unreal. "I adore you; but I will not allow you under pretence of embracing me to pinch my throat!" "If you don't keep at a respectful distance I will stab you!" Such contradictions between words and gestures, between the music of the singers and their general demeanour towards one another, could not satisfy even the least discriminating of audiences; and the American public, if appreciative, is also critical. With some of my singers ill in bed, others quarrelling and fighting among themselves on the public stage, my Company got the credit of being entirely disorganized, and at every fresh city we visited our receipts became smaller and smaller. The expenditure meanwhile in salaries, travelling expenses, law costs, and hotel bills was something enormous. The end of it all was that at San Francisco we found ourselves defeated and compelled to seek safety in flight. We did our best at one final performance to get in a little money with which to begin the retreat; and I must frankly admit that the hotel-keepers on whom the various members of my Company were at this time quartered did their very best to push the sale of tickets, for in that alone lay their hope of getting their bills paid. It has been seen that at one time I was threatened with a complete break-up: my forces seemed on the point of dispersing.