the goggle-eyed boy had laid his down somewhere and had lost it.  No hotel would take him in without a passport, but these people were so obviously genuine, that I had no hesitation in issuing a fresh passport to the lad, after swearing the father to an affidavit that the protuberant-eyed youth was his lawful son.  After a few kind words as to the grave effects of any carelessness with passports in a country like Russia, I let the trio from Runcorn (or St. Helens) depart.

That evening I had just finished dressing and making-up as Countess Gorganzola, when I was told that three English people who had come on from the Embassy wished to see me.  The curtain would be going up in ten minutes, so I got an obliging Russian friend who spoke English to go down and interview them.  The strong Lancashire accent defeated him.  All he could tell me was that it was something about a passport, and that it was important.  I was in a difficulty.  It would have taken at least half an hour to change and make-up again, and the curtain was going up almost at once, so after some little hesitation I decided to go down as I was.  I was wearing a white wig with a large black lace cap, and a gown of black moire-antique trimmed with flounces and hanging sleeves of an abominable material known as black Chantilly lace.  Any one who has ever had to wear this hateful fabric knows how it catches in every possible thing it can do.  Down I went, and the trio from Widnes (or Runcorn) seemed surprised at seeing an old lady enter the room.  But when I spoke, and they recognised in the old lady the frock-coated (and I trust sympathetic) official they had interviewed earlier in the day, their astonishment knew no bounds.  The father gazed at me horror-stricken, as though I were a madman; the mother kept on swallowing, as ladies of her type do when they wish to convey strong disapprobation; and the prominent-orbed boy’s eyes nearly fell out of his head.  I explained that some theatricals were in progress, but that did not mend matters; evidently in the serious circles in which they moved in St. Helens (or Widnes), theatricals were regarded as one of the snares of the Evil One.  To make matters worse, one of my Chantilly lace sleeves caught in the handle of a drawer, and perhaps excusably, but quite audibly, I condemned all Chantilly lace to eternal punishment, but in a much shorter form.  After that they looked on me as clearly beyond the pale.  The difficulty about the passport was easily adjusted.  The police had threatened to arrest the young man, as his new passport was clearly not the one with which he had entered Russia.  The Russian Minister of the Interior happened to be in the green-room, and on my personal guarantee as to the identity of the Widnes youth, he wrote an order to the police on his visiting-card, bidding them to leave the goggle-eyed boy in peace.  I really tremble to think of the reports this family must have circulated upon their return to Widnes (or Runcorn) as to the frivolity of junior members of the British Diplomatic Service, who dressed up as old women, and used bad language about Chantilly lace.