“Our tao-tai, Hop Li, was a short man, but by putting cushions under my coat, and a false moustache on my lip, I made myself resemble him to the life. My first appearance proved a great success, my drunken scene evoking much merriment from the audience, and the next night the house was crammed. That night the audience made me repeat the drunken scene, and the next night they wanted it three times. I began to get a little conceited, and suggested to the manager that I should be paid for my performance or I would not play, and he, knowing that the success of the play now entirely depended upon me, and that my performances were bringing him crowded houses every night, assented. The audiences became more and more enthusiastic over my drunken scene, and I began to introduce innovations. I had a horse brought on the stage and mounted it in a fashion not unlike our tao-tai, who was no rider and very nervous. This brought the house down, and things got to such a pitch that the manager offered me many taels to make my particular business last for three hours. It was hard work, but I did it. For three hours every night I acted that I was drunk. I mounted horses, I gave ridiculous judgments in the courts, I fought, I dined—in fact, I did everything I could to please. The fame of this performance was so noised about that it came to the ears of our own tao-tai, and he decided to see the play himself—an unfortunate thing for me. “I think on the night of the tao-tai’s visit to the theatre I surpassed myself. I was more amusing than usual. I ordered new horses, new witnesses, new prisoners. I was three and three-quarter hours getting drunk, and all the time the tao-tai watched me. That night, I think, I had taken especial care of my make-up, for I was a life-like representation of Hop Li, and the audience were like people possessed. “Missis Dolly, the next morning was tellible. “The congratulations of my friends had kept me up most of the night, and, when in a very deep sleep, the next morning I was roughly pulled off the ‘kang’ on which I lay by two of the runners from the tao-tai’s Yamen. “I was not brought before the magistrate, but was taken to a small room in the Yamen and carefully guarded. I could learn nothing from my gaolers except that the tao-tai was very angry, and that all theatrical performances had been stopped. For seven days I was kept closely guarded in that room, and during the whole time I was well and liberally fed; at the end of the period I was brought before the tao-tai. In many long-winded and high-sounding phrases he pointed out what a disgustingly despicable and mean person I was, that the mere attempt to hold up to ridicule any of the servants of the Son of Heaven was a crime that could not be too severely dealt with, that although I had signally failed in this my attempt to ridicule a tao-tai, still, as an example to others, my punishment should be a severe one,—that I should be trodden to death by countless feet.