To return to my narrative. At the conclusion of the great Chicago Festival, we left, in the middle of the night, for New York, and reached it on Monday morning, where we opened with _Semiramide_ to as large an audience as the Academy had ever known. On the Friday following, on the occasion of my benefit, the receipts reached nearly £3,000, the house being crowded from floor to ceiling. At the close of the opera I was called before the curtain, and on quitting the stage, with Adelina Patti on my right and Scalchi on my left, I was met by Chief Justice Shea, who approached me and said-- "Colonel Mapleson, a number of our citizens who represent significant phases of social life and important business interests in this metropolis desire to testify in a public and notable manner that they understand and laud the superb success which has followed your efforts to establish Italian Opera in this city. It is seldom that public men are understood. It is very seldom that they are offered an acknowledgment beyond the few earnest friends that cluster around them. Those citizens to whom I refer recognize that your career amongst us has not been a mere chance success, but the result of patience, energy, and the intelligent courage which comes of ripe experience. They think this an apt occasion on which publicly to express the sincerity of that opinion. Sir, allow me on their behalf to offer you this memorial." I was then handed a magnificent ebony case, fitted with a crystal glass, containing the following:--A valuable repeater watch set in diamonds, a gold chain with diamond and ruby slides, diamond and ruby charm in the shape of a harp, a pair of large solitaire diamond sleeve buttons, a diamond collar stud, a horse-shoe scarf pin (nine large diamonds), three diamond shirt studs, a gold pencil-case with a diamond top and a plain gold pin with a single diamond; the whole being valued at £1,300. The ebony case and crystal glass I still possess. The contents, together with everything else, went to keep the Company together during the disastrous retreat from Frisco of the following year, as to which I will later on give details. I thanked the Chief Justice briefly for the gift and the public for their patronage, and with difficulty left the stage amidst ringing cheers and waving of pocket-handkerchiefs: I say with difficulty, because at that critical moment, as I was picking up a bouquet, the buckle of my pantaloons gave way; and as my tailor had persuaded me, out of compliment to him, to discard the use of braces, it was only with great difficulty that I could manage to shuffle off the stage, entrusting meanwhile some of the jewellery to Patti and some to Scalchi.