But Letizia struggled out of Mrs. Pottage’s arms and retreated under the seat of the stall from which she did not emerge until this enigmatic interlude in the life of the Fairy Queen came to an end amid a tumult of applause from the profoundly moved audience. Letizia failed to recognise her father when he came rushing on for the Harlequinade at the end of the Transformation Scene with the time-honoured greeting of “Here we are again!” And when Mrs. Pottage told her who the clown was, she merely shook her head violently and reiterated “No, no, no, no, no!” However, the Harlequinade itself thoroughly amused her, although she did not approve of the Harlequin’s dance with her mother the Columbine. “Who is that spotted man?” she asked. “Why does he frow muvver up like that? I don’t like him. I don’t like his black face. I won’t let him frow up my lamb what Santy Claus gave me.” “Well, you threw it up yourself just now and hit the poor fiddle.” “Yes,” Letizia acknowledged in a tone of plump contentment. The Harlequinade came to an end with a wonderful trap-act, in which the Clown was pursued by the Policeman head first through one shop window, head first out through another, up a long flight of stairs that turned into planks just as they both reached the top, so that they both rolled down to the bottom and disappeared into a cellar. Out again and diving through more windows, whirling round doors without hinges, climbing over roofs, sliding down chimneys, until at last the Policeman’s pursuit was shaken off and the Clown, after bounding up ten feet into the air through a star-trap, alighted safely on the stage whence, after snatching a basket that was hanging up outside a shop window, he began to pelt the audience with crackers while the orchestra stood up to play _God Save the Queen_ and the curtain slowly descended on a great success at the Theatre Royal, Greenwich. CHAPTER XI THE END OF THE HARLEQUINADE “I don’t think you _were_ a very good little girl,” said Nancy reproachfully to her daughter when she was brought round to the dressing-room by Mrs. Pottage after the matinée. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,” averred Letizia entirely impenitent. “My lamb what Santy Claus gave me saided I was a very good little girl. He saided ‘Oh, Tizia, you _is_ a good little girl!’” The landlady beamed. “There’s one thing, she thoroughly enjoyed her little self, and so did I, I’m bound to say, even if we _was_ a bit noisy.” “I’m afraid Letizia was very noisy indeed.” “Yes, but nobody minded two penn’orth of gin except a dismal-faced widow-woman sitting just behind us, and she’d had more than two penn’orth before ever she come out which is my opinion.” “My husband and I won’t have time to dress and come home between the shows,” said Nancy. “We’re having some dinner sent in to us here. The curtain goes up again at seven, and it’s nearly six now.”