ired no description, being merely a number of plain,
movable partitions, draught-screens and chairs. There was no
drop-curtain, and the scene shifters worked in full view of the
audience, removing furniture and knocking down partitions with hammers
during the vocal rendering of some of the thrilling passages of the
opera. On another platform, behind the stage, the orchestra was making
strenuous, and at times, very effective attempts to drown the squeals
of the Leading Lady, who did not seem to mind it a bit. The conductor,
in his shirt sleeves, was laying on, alternately, to a Chinese drum
and what looked like two empty cocoanut shells, whacking out a species
of rag-time all on his own, while the two other members of the band
were performing on high-pitched Chinese fiddles, determined evidently
on keeping up the racket at all costs.

Phil noticed no evidence of sheet music, so familiar in a white man's
orchestra. These were real artists and they played entirely from
memory.

In an endeavour to be enlightened, Phil touched a Chinaman in front of
him--for the familiar one at his side had slipped quietly to some
other part of the hall.

"John,--what all this play about--you know?" he asked.

Without turning round, the Oriental sang to him in a top-storey
voice:--

"Lu-wang Kah Chek-tho, chiu-si. Tung-Kwo chi Ku-su. Savvy?"

Phil did not "savvy," but another Chinaman, more obliging and more
English, who introduced himself as Mee Yi-ow, told him the gist of the
tale in pigeon English, up to the point where Phil had come in, so
that he was able to follow the performance with some intelligence,
from there on.

Away back in the middle ages, a bold, bad, blood-thirsty brigand
chief kidnapped the only daughter of the Empress, because of that
young lady's irresistible beauty and charm and because of his own
unquenchable love for her. He, in turn, was trapped and captured by
the Royal Body Guard, who brought him--manacled in chains with cannon
balls at the ends of them--before the haughty Empress. He was
sentenced to death by nibbling--a little piece to be skewered out of
him every two hours, Chinese time.

The Brigand Chief, on the side, was a hand-cuff expert. One day he
managed to slip out of his chains and away from his tiresome cannon
balls. He made a daring dash for liberty, disarming and killing a
sentry. Boldly, he sought out the Captain of the Royal Guard and
fought a very realistic duel with him before the Empr