Belasco, as he told me, declined to attend the first London performance of his “Butterfly.” “I didn’t know how it might go,” he said, “—and I didn’t intend to be called out and ’boo-ed.’ Frohman was very confident and kept telling me it would be all right, but I didn’t go ’round (I was busy, too, at the Garrick) till right at the end and then I only went ’in front.’” At the end, however, the enthusiasm of the audience was so great and the calls for him were so long and urgent that he was at last compelled to go upon the stage and make his grateful acknowledgments. “I sometimes feel,” said Belasco, “that the tribute of that English audience, at first sitting in absolute silence, except for the sound of some women crying, then calling and calling for me and waiting and waiting, while Frohman came ’round in front and found me and insisted upon my going to the stage, was the most gratifying I ever received. Giacomo Puccini, the Italian composer, was in front that night and after the curtain fell he came behind the scenes to embrace me enthusiastically and to beg me to let him use ’Madame Butterfly’ as an opera libretto. I agreed at once and told him he could do anything he liked with the play and make any sort of contract he liked—because it is not possible to discuss business arrangements with an impulsive Italian who has tears in his eyes and both his arms round your neck! I never believed he did see ’Madame Butterfly’ that first night; he only heard the music he was going to write. Afterward I came to know him well, and found him the most agreeable and simple-hearted fellow in the world,—a great artist without the so-called ’temperament.’”