Voces Populi Part 12

VARIOUS SPEAKERS. Wheer be pus.h.i.+n' to? Car that manners screouging like that!... I cann't see nawthen, _I_ cann't wi' all they 'ats in front....

What be gooin' arn, do 'ee know?... A wumman gooin' in along 'o they lions and tigerses? Naw, ye niver mane it!... Bain't she a leatherin' of 'un too!... Now she be a kissin' of 'un--maakin' it oop loike.... John, you can see better nor me--what be she oop to now?... Puttin' 'er 'ed inside o' th' lion's? Aw, dear me, now--_there_'s a thing to be doin'

of! Well, I'd ruther it was 'er nor me, I know _that_.... They wun't do 'er naw 'arm, so long's she kips 'er heye on 'em.... What do 'ee taak so voolish vor? How's th' wumman to kip 'er heye on 'em, with 'er 'ed down wan on 'em's throat, eh?... Gracious alive! if iver I did!... Oh, I do 'ope she bain't gooin' to let off naw fire-arms, I be moor fear'd o'

pistols nor any tigers.... Theer, she's out now! She be bold fur a female, bain't her?... She niver maade 'em joomp through naw bla-azin'

'oops, though.... What carl would she hev fur doin' that? Well, they've a drared 'er doin' of it houtside', that's arl I know.... An' they've a drared Hadam outside a naamin' of th' hanimals--but ye didn't expect to see _that_ doon inside', did 'ee?... Bob, do 'ee look at old Muster Manders ovver theer by th' h.e.l.lyphant. He's a maakin' of 'isself that familiar--putting biskuts 'tween his lips and lettin' th' h.e.l.lyphant take 'em out wi's troonk!... _I_ see un--let un aloan, th' hold doitler, happen he thinks he's a feedin' his canary bird!

At the Regent Street Tussaud's.

_Before the effigy of Dr. Koch, who is represented in the act of examining a test-tube with the expression of bland blamelessness peculiar to Wax Models._

WELL-INFORMED VISITOR. That's Dr. Koch, making his great discovery!

UNSCIENTIFIC V. What did _he_ discover?

WELL-INF. V. Why, the Consumption Bacillus. He's got it in that bottle he's holding up.

UNSC. V. And what's the good of it, now he _has_ discovered it?

WELL-INF. V. Good? Why, it's the thing that causes _consumption_, you know!

UNSC. V. Then it's a pity he didn't leave it alone!

_Before a Scene representing "The Home Life at Sandringham."_

FIRST OLD LADY (_with Catalogue_). It says here that "the note the page is handing _may_ have come from Sir Dighton Probyn, the Comptroller of the Royal Household." Fancy _that_!

SECOND OLD LADY. He's brought it in in his fingers. Now _that's_ a thing I never allow in _my_ house. I always tell Sarah to bring all letters, and even circulars, in on a tray!

_Before a Scene representing the late Fred Archer, on a rather quaint quadruped, on Ascot Racecourse._

A SPORTSMAN. H'm--Archer, eh? Shouldn't have backed his mount in _that_ race!

_Before "The Library at Hawarden."_

GLADSTONIAN ENTHUSIAST (_to_ FRIEND, _who, with the perverse ingenuity of patrons of Waxworks, has been endeavouring to identify the Rev. John Wesley among the Cabinet in Downing Street_). Oh, never mind all that lot, Betsy; they're only the _Gover'ment_! Here's dear Mr. and Mrs.

Gladstone in this next! See, he's lookin' for something in a drawer of his side-board--ain't that _natural_? And only look--a lot of people have been leaving Christmas cards on him (_a pretty and touching tribute of affection, which is eminently characteristic of a warm-hearted Public_). I wish I'd thought o' bringing one with me!

HER FRIEND. So do I. We might send one 'ere by post--but it'll have to be a New Year Card now!

A STRICT OLD LADY (_before next group_). Who are these two? "Mr. 'Enery Irving, and Miss Ellen Terry in _Faust_, eh? No--I don't care to stop to see them--that's play-actin', that is--and I don't 'old with it nohow!

What are these two parties supposed to be doin' of over here?

What--Cardinal Newman and Cardinal Manning at the High Altar at the Oratory, Brompton! Come along, and don't encourage Popery by looking at such figures. I _did_ 'ear as they'd got Mrs. Pearcey and the prambilator somewheres. I _should_ like to see that, now."

IN THE CHILDREN'S GALLERY.

AN AUNT (_who finds the excellent Catalogue a mine of useful information_). Look, Bobby, dear (_reading_). "Here we have Constantine's Cat, as seen in the _Nights of Straparola_, an Italian romancist, whose book was translated into French in the year 1585--"

BOBBY (_disappointed_). Oh, then it _isn't Puss in Boots_!

A GENIAL GRANDFATHER (_pausing before Crusoe and Friday_). Well, Percy, my boy, you know who _that_ is, at all events--eh?

PERCY. I suppose it is Stanley--but it's not very like.

THE G. G. Stanley!--Why, bless my soul, never heard of _Robinson Crusoe_ and his man _Friday_?

PERCY. Oh, I've _heard_ of them, of course--they come in Pantomimes--but I like more grown-up sort of books myself, you know. Is this girl asleep _She_?

[Ill.u.s.tration: "THAT'S PLAY-ACTIN', THAT IS--AND I DON'T 'OLD WITH IT NOHOW!"]

THE G. G. No--at least--well, I expect it's _The Sleeping Beauty_. You remember her, of course--all about the ball, and the gla.s.s slipper, and her father picking a rose when the hedge grew round the palace, eh?

PERCY. Ah, you see, Grandfather, you had more time for general reading than we get. (_He looks through a practicable cottage window._) Hallo, a Dog and a Cat. Not badly stuffed!

THE G. G. Why, that must be _Old Mother Hubbard_. (_Quoting from memory._) "Old Mother Hubbard sat in a cupboard, eating a Christmas pie--or a _bone_ was it?"

PERCY. Don't know. It's not in _Selections from British Poetry_, which we have to get up for "rep."

THE AUNT (_reading from Catalogue_). "The absurd ambulations of this antique person, and the equally absurd antics of her dog, need no recapitulation." Here's _Jack the Giant Killer_, next. Listen, Bobby, to what it says about him here. (_Reads._) "It is clearly the last trans.m.u.tation of the old British legend told by Geoffrey of Monmouth, of Corineus, the Trojan, the companion of the Trojan Brutus, when he first settled in Britain. But more than this"--I hope you're listening, Bobby?--"_more_ than this, it is quite evident, even to the superficial student of Greek mythology, that many of the main incidents and ornaments are borrowed from the tales of Hesiod and Homer." Think of that, now!

[BOBBY _thinks of it, with depression_.

THE G. G. (_before figure of Aladdin's Uncle selling new lamps for old_). Here you are, you see! "_Ali Baba_," got 'em all here, you see.

Never read your _Arabian Nights_, either! Is that the way they bring up boys nowadays!

PERCY. Well, the fact is, Grandfather, that unless a fellow reads that kind of thing when he's _young_, he doesn't get a chance afterwards.

THE AUNT (_still quoting_). "In the famous work," Bobby, "by which we know Masudi, he mentions the Persian Hezar Afsane-um-um-um,--nor have commentators failed to notice that the occasion of the book written for the Princess Homai resembles the story told in the Hebrew Bible about Esther, her mother or grandmother, by some Persian Jew two or three centuries B.C." Well, I never knew _that_ before!... This is _Sindbad and the Old Man of the Sea_--let's see what they say about _him_.

(_Reads._) "Both the story of _Sindbad_ and the old Basque legend of Tartaro are undoubtedly borrowed from the _Odyssey_ of Homer, whose _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ were translated into Syriac in the reign of Harun-ur-Ras.h.i.+d." Dear, dear, how interesting, now! and, Bobby, what _do_ you think some one says about _Jack and the Beanstalk_? He says--"This tale is an allegory of the Teutonic Al-fader, the red hen representing the all-producing sun; the moneybags, the fertilizing rain; and the harp, the winds." Well, I'm sure it seems likely enough, doesn't it?

[BOBBY _suppresses a yawn_; PERCY'S _feelings are outraged by receiving a tin trumpet from the Lucky Tub; general move to the scene of the Hampstead Tragedy_.

BEFORE THE HAMPSTEAD TABLEAUX.

SPECTATORS. Dear, dear, there's the _dresser_, you see, and the window broken and all; it's wonderful how they can _do_ it! And there's poor Mrs. 'Ogg--it's real b.u.t.ter and a real loaf she's cutting, and the poor baby, too!... Here's the actual casts taken after they were murdered.

Oh, and there's Mrs. Pearcey wheeling the perambulator--it's the _very_ perambulator! No, not the very one--they've got _that_ at the other place, and the piece of toffee the baby sucked. Have they really! Oh, we _must_ try and go there, too, before the children's holidays are over.

And this is all? Well, well, everything very nice, I _will_ say. But a pity they couldn't get the _real_ perambulator!

At the Military Exhibition.

IN THE AVENUE FACING THE ARENA.