astic were the audience that we
agreed to give the opera again four nights in succession.

I was at work in the Chancery of the Embassy next morning when three
people were ushered in to me. They were a family from either St.
Helens, Runcorn, or Widnes, I forget which, all speaking the broadest
Lancashire. The navigation of the Neva being again opened, they had
come on a little trip to Russia on a tramp-steamer belonging to a
friend of theirs. There was the father, a short, thickset man in shiny
black broadcloth, with a shaven upper lip, and a voluminous red
"Newgate-frill" framing his face--exactly the type of face one
associates with the Deacon of a Calvinistic-Methodist Chapel; there was
the mother, a very grim-looking female; and the son, a nondescript
hobbledehoy with goggle-eyes. It appeared that after their passports
had been inspected on landing, 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