of £1,000. I went to my friend, and he was non est. What was to be done? The money had to be found! I made up my mind not to be beaten, and I wasn't, for on the appointed day I paid the deposit, much to the satisfaction of the lawyers of my landlord, and to the surprise of my own. 'The World' was really my first great success, and from that day I have never looked back.
"There is a romantic side to the story. Soon after the death of Mr. Rendle, who helped me to open the old theatre, I married his daughter. We were married at 8 o'clock in the morning at St. Luke's, and I shall never forget poor Harry Jackson spreading the report that I was to be married at such and such a church at 11 o'clock, a joke he practised day by day on a number of people for over a fortnight, and in one instance hundreds of people assembled at Hanover-square to witness the ceremony, and in another quite a select party of well-known actors specially went to a quiet little church in the North of London on a similar fruitless errand."
Lady Harris.
From a Photo. by Elliott & Fry.
As Sir Augustus laughed heartily at this little incident, we had reached Covent Garden Theatre. We stayed there for a moment to see the wardrobe, unrivalled for its beauty by any opera-house in the world. There are rooms filled with costumes—they hang up in the great cupboards wrapped in tissue paper, for all the world like so many hams. They are numbered up in hundreds—shoes, stockings, dress, belt, hat, gloves, all corresponding, a large proportion of the handsomest dresses being the personal property of Sir Augustus; the remaining part has been accumulating here for over forty years, and one comes across dresses once worn by the great Mario, and now allotted to a member of the chorus. The dresses cost from a few pounds to a hundred guineas apiece. In some instances two hundred has been paid.
"I have spent £15,000 on dresses this year for the opera alone," said Sir Augustus, taking up the delicate dress worn by Miss Eames as Desdemona, and pointing- out its marvellous workmanship. "Romeo is the most expensive opera I have ever dressed; but as it always draws such enormous houses, and as I have purchased all rights in it for the British Empire, I could afford to be extravagant, and I have been.
"Gounod, when asked which opera he liked best, 'Faust' or 'Romeo,' replied: 'When I wrote "Faust" I was younger, when I wrote "Romeo" I was older.' Last opera season about balanced itself. The accountant's books show a return of £80,819. But the expenses of the artists were so great that little or nothing was left, but I wished the season should be a memorable one, and live in the recollection of those who appreciate true art, and I am perfectly content. There would have been a large profit had it not been for the influenza and the financial
