Walker-My_Musical_Ex.. - Walter Cosand

SGAMBATI 79
pendence of the New York Hotel ; that the entertainment
was given in order to raise funds for maintaining
a poor student, who was gone away for his health
and though I am not quite certain whether Sgambati's
name actually figured on the bills, yet 1 know the
report that he and his wife would appear passed from
mouth to mouth, until it was known all over the
Bagni di Lucca. The result was that people thronged
in from all the hotels, and from most of the villas,
and if we had only thought of making the charge for
admission higher, we might have realized quite a
large sum that evening. But the room was small,
and there were numbers who had to go away without
being able to get even standing room, and half a
franc was all we had thought of asking for entrance.
The result was that, after paying for the use of the
room, lights, and many other etceteras, the perform-
ance only left us a balance of one or two hundred
francs.
One of the tableaux rivants depicted a scene in Pre-
ciosa, in which Sgambati appeared in the character of
a bandit. I can still recall him, as he stood, gun in
hand, on a high rock which frowned at the turn of a
narrow mountain- pass. He was dressed in a very
tolerable imitation of the bandit costume; with a
knife slung from his loose and carelessly knotted
sash, and a broad-brimmed high-coned hat, from
which a tall feather waved, . he quite looked the part
he had chosen to assume.
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