58.—AN IGNORANT TENOR.
Campanini once made an enemy by the use of a title which a rival singer thought to be his own particular property. Fancelli, the rival, was a very ignorant man and could hardly read or write, but he deciphered the term "Primo Tenore Assoluto" on Campanini's baggage, and this aroused his wrath, as he considered the word "Assoluto" (meaning absolute or unrivaled), should be applied exclusively to himself. So ignorant was Fancelli, who, by the way, had formerly been a baggage porter at Leghorn, that he had to hire one of the opera chorus to write the autographs he gave to admiring damsels. He was once asked to append his signature to the autograph album of the Liverpool Philharmonic Society. His scribe was not at hand, so he undertook the painful operation himself. He got along fairly well with the name, only omitting one "l" and a "c." Not content with that, he attempted to add his pet title, and succeeded, in his schoolboy hand, very well till he got to the final word, the most charming of them all, in his eyes. After he had written an "a" and three "s's," he managed to spread a huge blot of ink on the page which obliterated one of them, and to-day the signature stands,
Faneli Primo Tenore Ass"