Chapter Twenty Seven.
The Decline of the Drama.
’Tain’t no use, sir; times is altered and the people too. What with yer railways, and telegraphs, and steam, and penny noosepapers, people knows too much by half, and it’s about all dickey with our profession. People won’t stop and look: they thinks it’s beneath ’em; and ’tain’t no good to get a good pitch, for the coppers won’t come in nohow. Why what’s innocenter or moraller than a Punch and Judy? “Nothing,” says you, and of course there ain’t. Isn’t it the showing up of how wice is punished and wirtue triumphant in a pleasant and instructive manner. Ov course it is. But no, it won’t do now. Punches is wore out; and so’s Fantysheenys and tumbling; for people’s always wanting a something noo, just as if anything ought to be noo ’cept togs and tommy. Ain’t old things the best all the world over? You won’t have noo paintings, nor noo wine, and you allus thinks most o’ old books and old fiddles; so what do you want with a noo sort o’ Punch?
Here I am a-sitting up in the old spot; there’s the theayter in the back-yard, with the green baize and the front up here on account o’ the rain. There you are you see, turn him round. There’s a given up to the calls o’ the time. “Temple of Arts” you see on the top, in a ribbon, with Punch holdin’ on wun side and comical Joey holding on t’other. There’s the strap and box, if you’ll open it, and there’s the pipes on the chimbly-piece. There’s everything complete but the drum, and that we was obliged to lend to the ’Lastic Brothers, for theirs is lent, uncle you know, and Jem Brown, one on ’em, says he lost the ticket, though it looks werry suspicious.
But, now, just open that box, and lay ’em out one at a time on the table, and you’ll just see as it ain’t our fault as we don’t get on. An’ take that ere fust. ’Tain’t no business there, but it’s got atop somehow. That’s the gallus that is, and I allus would have as galluses ought to be twiste as big, but Bill Bowke, my pardner, he says as it’s right enough, and so I wouldn’t alter. Now there you are! Look at that, now! There’s a Punch! Why, it’s enough to bring tears in yer eyes to see how public taste’s fell off. There was four coats o’ paint put on him, besides the touchins up and finishins, and at a time, too, when browns were that scarce it was dreadful. There, pull ’em out, sir; I ain’t ashamed o’ the set, and hard-up as I am at this werry moment, I wouldn’t take two pound for ’em. There, now. Pull ’em out. That’s Joe, and he’s got his legs somehow in the beadle’s pocket. Quite nat’ral, ain’t it? just as if he was a rum ’un ’stead of only being a doll, you know. That’s the kid as you’ve dropped. That ain’t much account, that ain’t; for you see babies never does have any ’spression on their faces, and anything does to be chucked outer window; and the crowd often treads on it, bless you. There’s a Judy, too; only wants a new frill a-tacking on her head for a cap, and she’s about the best on the boards, I’ll bet. You see I cared ’em myself, and give the whole of my mind to it, so as the faces might look nat’ral and taking. Mind his wig, sir. Ah! that wants a bit o’ glue, that does, and a touch o’ black paint. You see that’s the furrin gentleman as says nothin’ but “Shallabala,” and a good deal o’ the back of his head’s knocked off. There you are, you see, bright colours, good wigs, and nicely dressed. That’s the ghost. Looks thin? well, in course, sperrets ain’t ’sposed to be fat. Head shrunk? Well, ’nuff to make it. That’s Jack Ketch; and that’s the coffin; and that’s the devil. We don’t allus bring him out, and keeps the ghost in the box sometimes, according to the company as we gets in. Out in the streets the people likes to see it all; not as they often do, for we generally gets about half through, and then drops it, pretending we can’t get coppers enough to play it out, when the real thing is as the people’s sucked dry, and won’t tip any more, or we’d keep it up; but in the squares and gentlemen’s gardings it ain’t considered right for the children, so we gives the play in a mutilated form, don’t you see.
Now that’s the lot, don’t you see, sir, and if you wouldn’t mind putting the box on this chair by the bedside, and shoving the table up close, I’ll put ’em all back careful myself, for lying sick here one don’t get much amusement. Ain’t got even Toby here, which being a dawg warn’t much company, yet he was some, though his name warn’t Toby but Spice. Nice dawg he was, though any training warn’t no good; he was a free child o’ natur, and when his time came for the play he would bite the wrong noses and at the wrong times. The wust of it was too, that he would bolt, I don’t mean swaller, but go a-running off arter other dawgs, and getting his frill torn as bad as his ears, and I never did see a raggeder pair o’ ears than he had nowheres—torn amost to ribbons they was. We lost him at last, though I never knowed how, but a ’spicion crossed my mind one day when Bill my pardner was eating a small German, and it was close by the factory as we missed him; and though Bill said I was a duffer and spoilt his dinner, I allus stuck to it, and allus will, as there was the smell of Spice in that ere sassage.
There you are, yer see sir, all packed clost and neat, and as I said afore I wouldn’t take two pounds for ’em, bad as I am inside and out. Trade’s bad, profession’s bad, and I’m bad; but bless yer heart we shall have a revival yet, and when the drum comes back, and I get wind enough again to do the business, we shall go ahead like all that.
There if I ain’t boxed all the figgers up, and left the coffin out. Good job my old woman ain’t here, or she’d say it was a sign or something o’ that sort, and try to make one uncomfortable; but there you are, you see, sir, all snug now, and it does seem rather a low spiriting thing to have in a house, sir, and putting aside Punch and Judy stuff, the smaller they are the less you like it.
Going, sir? well, you’ll come again, I hope, and if I do get better, why, I’ll go through the lot in front of your house, if you let me have your card.
Beg pardon, sir, thought you were going; not as I wants you to, for company’s werry pleasant when you’re stretched on your back and can’t help yourself. Since I’ve been a-lying here I’ve been reckoning things up, and I’ve come to the conclusion as the world’s got too full. People lives too fast, and do what you will, puff and blow and race after ’em, ten to one you gets beat. Everything wants to be noo and superior, says the people, and nothing old goes down. Look at them happy times, when one could take the missus in the barrer with a sackful o’ cokynuts and pincushions, and them apples and lemons as the more you opened the more come out; then there’d be the sticks, and a tin kettle, and just a few odds and ends, and all drawn by the donkey; when off we’d go down to some country fair or the races; dig the holes or have bags of earth, stick up the things—cokynuts or cushions; the wife sees to the fire and kittle, and you shouts out—leastways, I don’t mean you, I mean me, you know—shouts out, “Three throws a penny,” when the chuckle-headed bumpkins would go on throwing away like winkin’ till they knocked something down, and then go off all on the smile to think how clever they’d been. But now they must have their Aunt Sallys and stuff, and country fairs has all gone to the bow-wows.
If I gets better I’m a-goin’ to turn Punch from a mellowdramy into a opera—make ’em sing everything, you know. I’d have tried it on afore only my mate gets so orrid short-winded with the pipes, and often when you’re a-expectin’ the high notes of a toone he drops it off altogether, and fills in with larrups of the drum, and that wouldn’t do you know in the sollum parts.
Them music-halls has done us as much harm as any-think, and pretty places they is; why if it warn’t for the pretty toons as they fits on the songs, nobody wouldn’t stop to hear the rubbidge as is let off. Punch is stoopid sometimes, we know, but then look at the moral. And there ain’t no moral at all in music-hall songs.
Sometimes I think as I shall have to knock off the national drammy in consequence of want of funds, for you know times may turn so hard that I shall have to sell all off, and the drum mayn’t come back, though I was thinking one time of me and pardner taking a hinstrument each and practisin’ up some good dooets—me taking the drum and him the pipes, allus allowing, of course, as the drum do come back. But then you see as his short-windedness would be agen us, and it wouldn’t do to be allus drowning the high parts with so much leathering.
Heigho, sir. It makes me sigh to lie here so long waiting to get well, till in the dusky evening time, when the gas lamps are shining up and the stars are peeping down, one gets thinking that it’s time to think of that little thing as I left out of the box; and then lying all alone one seems to have all the long years fall away from one, and get back into the old, old times, and often I have been fishing, and wandering, and bird’s-nesting again all over and over as it used to be. I see it all so plainly, and then get calling up all the old mates I had, and reckoning ’em up, and one’s out in Indy, and another was killed in the Crimee, and another’s in Australy for poaching, and among the whole lot I only knows one now, and that’s me—what there is left. I don’t talk like this before the old woman, but I think so much of our old churchyard, and the green graves, and yew trees; and somehow as I remember the old sunny corners and green spots, I fancy as I should like to go to sleep there far away from these courts and alleys. It seems like dying here, and being hurried away afterwards, with every one glad to get rid of you; but down in the old quiet parts it seems to me like watching the sun go down behind the hill, when the still, quiet evening comes on so soft and pleasant, and then you grow tired and worn-out and lie down to rest, taking a long, long sleep under the bright green turf.
But there, I ain’t in the country, I’m here in the thick of London, where I came up to seek my fortun, and never looked in the right place. We poor folks are like the children playing at “Hot boiled beans and werry good butter,” and though while you’re hunting for what’s hid, you may get werry near sometimes, getting warmer and hotter till you’re burning, yet somehow it isn’t often that one finds. Some does, but there’s werry few of ’em, and in the great scramble when one gets hold of anything it’s a chansh if it ain’t snatched out of your hand.
But there, I shan’t give up, for there’s nothing like a bit o’ pluck to carry you through your troubles, and I’m a-going to scheme a noo sorter public Shakespearian dramatic entertainment, one as will be patronised by all the nobility and gentry, when in consequence of the unparalleled success, we shall stop all the press orders and free list, and come out arterwards with a new drum, and get presented with a set o’ silver-mounted pipes by a grateful nation. Leastwise I mean it to be a success if I can, but if it don’t turn out all right, through me and my pardner being so touched in the wind, Bill’s a-going to get up a subscription to buy a barrel-orgin and a four-wheel thing as ’ll take us both—me and the orgin; when I shall sit there with a tin plate to take the coppers, and Bill will grind away like that Italian chap as drew round the gentleman wot had been operated on. I don’t want to come down to that, though, for one can’t help ’sociating barrel-orgins with monkeys, and pitying the poor little chattering beggars as is chained up to an eight-toon box, played slow, as if it was wrong in its inside. And that makes me rather shrink a bit from it, for thinking as I might get tired of the organ-grinder.
Steps, steps, steps. Here’s the missus coming, and there’ll be the physic to take, and then, after a bit of a nap, I mean to sit up and put my theaytrical company to rights.