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At that point 4,000 people became possessed with emotional frenzy. For 20 minutes they cheered while Scotti stood before them, smiling, weeping. Wreaths were brought out draped with the Italian colors, baskets of roses, bunches of gladi oli. Scotti attempted a speech in English. which he had been too lazy to learn: "I t'ank you, really. You give me pleasure but it is pain. ... I do not want to leave you but my health is not so good. Goodby. God bless you. . . . Good-by." Baritone Lawrence Tibbett started the audience singing "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" The cheers persisted until the outside curtain dropped. Lawrence Tib bett popped into fame the night he sang Ford to Scotti's Falstaff (TIME. Jan. 16). Plump little Marcella Sembrich had sat in the third row, a stiff-brimmed hat perched on her curly pompadour. She had been mindful of the night in 1899 when she sang Zerlina and Scotti. handsome, debo nair, with luxuriant black mustaches, made his Metropolitan debut as Don Giovanni. Olive Fremstad was there and Geraldine Farrar, white-haired and sub dued. Between acts in La Boheme they had kept the aisles crowded with auto graph-hounds.
When the last curtain fell ushers and doormen tried to stop an hysterical crowd from mobbing Scotti in his dressing-room. But many got through — Actress Ina Claire. her nose red from weeping; Sembrich, to whom the ever-gallant Scotti whispered, "Dear lady, I've never sung as well since You left'': Farrar. who ex claimed "Toto! ' to Scotti's "Geraldina! With her father and mother Farrar used to live at the old Hotel Knickerbocker when Scotti had rooms on the eighth-floor comer and Caruso lived just above him. Because phonograph records were having their boom then these three were artists known all over the U. S. Caruso and Scotti were called "the inseparables." Scotti got Caruso his first London engagement after which he came to the Metropolitan. Caruso sang in the opera company which Scotti once managed at a personal loss of $200.000. The mention of Caruso's name now causes Scotti reverently to exclaim, "What a voice!" The next minute he may candidly remark that his own voice was not one of the greatest. But he always used it intelligently. William James Henderson of the New York Sun, who witnessed the beginning of Scotti's Metropolitan career and sadly saw its end last week, wrote:
"Mr. Scotti has never been guilty of bad taste. He has succeeded-in comedy roles of various types without ever descending to buffoonery, and in serious parts without extravagance or bombast. He has gone his way steadily, a dignified and well-poised gentleman. We do not recall any exciting news stories of the doings of Scotti. He has not aired his views of times and singers and the public attitude toward art. He has remained within his field. . . ."