Kicking, plunging, buffetting like a madman, they carried me to the "flats," when the manager led me forward to the foot lights, my wreath of flowers contrasting rather ruefully with my bruised cheeks and torn habiliments.

Human beings, God be praised, are only capable of certain efforts--so that one-half the audience were coughing their sides out, while the other were hoarse as bull-frogs from their enthusiasm in less than five minutes.
"You'll have what my friend Rooney calls a chronic bronchitis for this, these three weeks," said I, "that's one comfort," as I bowed my way back to the "practicable" door, through which I made my exit, with the thousand faces of the parterre shouting my name, or, as fancy dictated, that of one of "my" operas.

I retreated behind the scenes, to encounter very nearly as much, and at closer quarters, too, as that lately sustained before the audience.

After an embrace of two minutes duration from the manager, I ran the gauntlet from the prima donna to the last triangle of the orchestra, who cut away a back button of my coat as a "souvenir." During all this, I must confess, very little acting was needed on my part.

They were so perfectly contented with their self-deception, that if I had made an affidavit before the mayor--if there be such a functionary in such an insane town--they would not have believed me.