LESSONS LEARNED AT A PANTOMIME
(By an Intelligent Schoolboy)
That demons are much given to making bad puns, and have on their visiting lists the most beautiful of the fairies.
That the attendants upon the demons (presumably their victims) spend much of their time in break-downs.
That the chief amusement in Fairyland is to stand upon one toe for a distressingly long time.
That the fairies, when they speak, don't seem to have more H.'s to their tongues, than clothes to their backs.
That the fairies have particularly fair complexions, considering they dance so much in the sunlight.
That the tight and scanty costume of the fairies is most insufficient protection from the showers that must be required to produce the gigantic and highly-coloured fairy flora.
That the chief fairy (to judge from her allusions to current events) must take in the daily papers.
That harlequin is always shaking his bat, but nothing seems to come of it, and that it is hard to say why he comes on or goes off, or, in short, what he's at altogether.
That if clown and pantaloon want to catch columbine, it is hard to see why they don't catch her.
That pantaloon must have been greatly neglected by his children to be exposed without some filial protection to such ill-usage from clown.
That clown leads a reckless and abandoned life, between thefts, butter-slides, hot pokers, nurse-maids, and murdered babies, and on the whole is lucky to escape hanging.
That policemen are made to be chaffed, cuffed, chased, and knocked head-over-heels.
