Just when I thought I couldn’t stand it a minute longer, I heard the voice of a white man swearing in the dressing-room behind the stage, and then the detective came through the curtain looking like he was mad enough to kill somebody. Frightened as I was at him, my heart was nigh ready to break with joy, for I knew that Daddy must have escaped from him somehow. He looked over the audience from the floor to the galleries where the women were, and finally went out. As soon as he was out of sight a Chinaman came up to me and grinned. “You likee see actor dlessing-loom?” he said. Something told me that he was a friend and I got right up and followed him. We went into the dressing-room, where all the costumes were hung on the wall and the actors were putting on queer dresses and painting their faces, then up a flight of stairs. I kept my eyes open sharp, looking everywhere for Daddy. Above the stage was the joss-house room of the theatre with punks burning, but the place was empty. Above that was the kitchen. Then we turned a corner, went down some steps and came to a padlocked door. My guide unlocked it, put me outside on a platform, whistled and left me, after saying, “You keep still; bimeby you catch him!” Then I heard his footsteps going back into the building. I was alone on an outside balcony, looking down into a dark alley, three floors below. After awhile a door opened, and a man beckoned to me. We went through a little hall with doors on each side and dark passages leading off every which way, and down these, in and out till I was more confused than ever, and then finally he knocked at a little door. It was opened, and I was pushed inside. It was a tiny box of a room, low and narrow. On a broad bunk at one side, two Chinese actors in costumes were lying, smoking opium pipes. Leastways, I thought they were Chinamen, but as soon as the door was shut, one jumped up and took me in his arms. I screamed and fought to get away, but he called me Reba, and I knew it was Daddy. No wonder I didn’t recognise him before. He had on a wig with a long queue, and a gold embroidered costume, and his face was painted in a hideous fashion, with his nose all white and streaks under his eyes. After I had kissed half the paint off his face he told me what had happened.