PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
VOLUME 93.
JULY 30, 1887.
MR. PUNCH'S MANUAL FOR YOUNG RECITERS.
A natural anxiety that his pupils should be furnished with as complete arepertory as possible, has prompted Mr. Punch to command one of hisspare Poets to knock off a little dramatic piece founded (at arespectful distance) upon a famous Transatlantic model. The spare Poetin question—all reluctant as he felt even to appear to be competingwith the inimitable—had, as the minion of Punch the Peremptory, nooption but to obey to the best of his powers. The special merit of thepresent production will be found in the care with which it has beenwatered down to suit the capacity of amateurs for whom the originalwould offer difficulties well-nigh insuperable. This poem isparticularly recommended to diffident young ladies with a suppressedtalent for recitation. Some on reading it may imagine that its rough butgenuine pathos is scarcely adapted to feminine treatment—but wait untilyou hear some young lady recite it! Mr. Punch, for his part, iscontent to wait for almost any length of time. The Author calls it:—
The Reciter is supposed to be in the Strand, facing the audience. Asyou come on, the idea is that you are suddenly attracted by anadvertisement borne by the last of a string of Sandwich-men. You stophim, and begin as follows. By the way, as you are enacting an American,you will of course be careful to speak through your nose, whenever itoccurs to you. Now then:—
H'yur, you! bossing them boards—Jess you fetch up a spell!
[Rough good-nature expressed by forefinger.
Don't go twitching your cords! (Impatiently.) Lemme look at ye well:
(Genial amusement.) Why, I'm derned ef ye don't look as skeered as a tortoise growed out of his shell!
What's the style of your show? This yer pictur looks gay:
Why, ye don't tell me so! (Homely gratification.) It's a Murrican play!
And you mosey along with the posters—wa'al, now, do ye find the job pay?
(With a kindly curiosity.) Say, what was it—drink? As has led to it....Stop!
Wa'al, on'y to think—Ef it isn't his shop!
This identical theater as hires ye. Hev ye heerd on him?—Hasdrubal Jopp!
So ye hev, I declar! Oh, it's likely the same,
Which I knew him out thar (indicate the United States by a vague jerk of your thumb). And I reckon it's Fame,
If a broken-down blizzard like you—(No offence!)—kin look so at his name!
(By the word "so" you should suggest a movement of pleased
surprise on the part of the Sandwich-man.)
Can't ye stay for awhile—Till I've opened my head?
So he's bin an' struck ile? Which the same's what I said—
Fur I see him in Fish outer Water, and sez I (sententiously), "A Tragedian bred!"