To be sure, the figures of statesmen have always interested Cup-tie crowds, for the provincial is much more of a politician than the Londoner. So also literary men like Scott, Dickens, Tennyson, Burns, and Kipling come in for much attention; more, perhaps, than portraits of the clergy. Sportsmen, too, such as W. G. Grace, Fred Archer, and “Tommy Lipton”--the last-mentioned for his America Cup performances--receive enough notice on Cup-tie days to maintain a good average of appreciation for the year. As on Bank Holidays, so on Cup-tie days, there are always many more live than wax figures in the Chamber of Horrors from morning till night. Indeed, I have seen the place so crowded that it was difficult to distinguish the effigies from the awestricken observers. Sometimes I have taken a walk round the Exhibition after it was closed on the night of the Cup-tie to see that all was right. Once I was called in haste to the Chamber of Horrors, where a stranger had been found asleep in a dark corner. After he had been roused and escorted outside, the scared fellow made off as if he had had the hangman at his heels. A return ticket from Bolton was picked up where he had lain. But the man from Bolton had bolted, and did not return to claim the ticket. CHAPTER XL The mysterious Sun Yat Sen’s visit--His escape from the Chinese Legation--The Dargai tableau--Sir William Treloar entertains his little friends. Once in its long history Madame Tussaud’s Exhibition opened on a Sunday--not, however, to the general public. The occasion was special and, in a way, mysterious. It had to do with one of the most dramatic personalities of the Chinese Empire and Republic. A message reached me late on a Saturday night that Dr. Sun Yat Sen, the first President of the Chinese Republic, wished to visit the Exhibition on the following Sunday morning. I was unable to receive him in person, but arranged that an attendant should represent me. The attendant knew nothing of the name of the visitor till he saw him looking at his own portrait and calling the attention of General Homer Lee--an American soldier holding high rank in the Chinese Army--who accompanied him, to the dimple in the chin of the model by placing his finger smilingly on the dimple in his own chin. [Illustration: DR. SUN YAT SEN From a photograph.] This was in the year 1911, and Sun Yat Sen was passing through London on his way from America to take up his presidential duties. His visit to the Exhibition had been planned by Dr. (now Sir James) Cantlie, of Harley Street, to whom Sun Yat Sen owed--the greatest of all debts of gratitude--his life. For it was this same Sun Yat Sen who, eleven years before, was liberated through the exertions of Dr. Cantlie from his prison in the Chinese Legation at Portland Place, a few minutes’ walk from Madame Tussaud’s.