“Stop, ere you any viler magic potions brew, For I declare such wickedness you soon shall rue.” “Muvver!” cried Letizia, clapping her hands in an ecstasy of welcome. “Ush!” said a solemn and deeply interested woman sitting in the row behind. “It _is_ my muvver, I tell you,” said Letizia, standing up on the seat of the stall and turning round indignantly to address the woman over the back of it. “Of course, it’s her mother,” Mrs. Pottage joined in even more indignantly. “Nice thing if a child can’t call out ‘mother’ in a free country without being hushed as if she was nobody’s child.” The solemn woman took an orange out of a bag and sucked it in silent disapproval. “No use for you to raise the least objection, Dick Whittington is under my protection,” declared the Fairy Queen, waving her wand to the accompaniment of a white spot-light. “In vain you seek to make my plans miscarry, For Dick his master’s daughter shall not marry,” declared the Demon King Rat, waving his sceptre to the accompaniment of a red spot-light. “That man’s bad,” Letizia announced gravely. If the traditional scene of alternate defiance of each other by the powers of Good and Evil had lasted much longer, she might have made an attempt to reach the stage and fight at her mother’s side; but the Demon King Rat vanished down a trap and the Fairy Queen hurried off Left to make way for Cheapside. “Why has faver got a red nose?” Letizia inquired, when Bram entered made up for Idle Jack. “I don’t like him to have a red nose. My lamb what Santy Claus gave me doesn’t like him to have a red nose.” Whereupon Letizia climbed up on the seat of the stall once more and turned her back on the stage in disgust. “Would you mind telling your little girl to kindly sit down,” the solemn and deeply interested woman behind requested of Mrs. Pottage. “This is my lamb what Santy Claus gave me,” Letizia informed the solemn woman in her most engaging voice, at which the solemn woman turned to her neighbour and declared angrily that children oughtn’t to be allowed into pantomimes if they couldn’t behave theirselves a bit more civilised. “Get down, duckie, there’s a love,” said Mrs. Pottage, who in spite of her contempt for the solemn woman could not but feel that she had some reason to complain. “Well, I don’t want to see faver with that red nose,” objected Letizia, who thereupon sat down in her stall, but held her hands in front of her eyes to shut out the unpleasant aspect of her father in his comic disguise. However, Idle Jack did so many funny things that at last his daughter’s heart was won, so that presently she and Mrs. Pottage were leading the laughter of the house. Finally when Idle Jack emptied a bag of flour on the Dame, Letizia was seized by such a rapture of appreciation that she flung her lamb into the orchestra and hit the first violin on the head.