THE BURIAL OF THE MASHER.
"Mr. Burnand's good-natured but well-directed chaff in 'Blue Beard,' at the Gaiety, may be said to have ridiculed that curious product of modern civilisation, the Masher, out of existence. His continued life now seems to be impossible."—Daily Paper.
NOT a laugh was heard, not a cheery sound,
As the song to an encore was hurried;
Not a man in the stalls to cheer was found,
On the night that the Masher was buried.
He'd come before to a parlous pass,
Sore stricken by TRUTH'S endeavour;
But "Blue Beard" gave him his coup de grâce.
And finished him once for ever!
It killed and buried him sitting there,
By ridicule on him turning;
'Neath the shifting lime-light's brilliant glare,
With the footlights brightly burning.
His wired gardenia graced his breast,
And sodden in scent one found him,
As he sat there sucking his stick with zest,
With his three-inch collar around him.
A deep red groove in his puffy throat,
That collar's starched edge was flaying;
And the bow trimmed pumps, on which youths now dote,
Were the clocks of his hose displaying.
Pearl-headed pins kept his tie in place.
And his shirt front's wealth of whiteness
Made yet more sallow his pasty face,
More dazzling his chest-stud's brightness.
No thought worth thinking was in his breast,
Nor on his dull brain was flashing,
But he sat encased in his board-like vest,
Equipped for the evening's mashing.
But few and short were the leers he gave
At the chorus-girls singing before him;
For cold and swift as an ocean wave,
The chaff of Burnand swept o'er him.
And vainly he turn'd, sore at heart and sick,
Some hope from the "Johnnies" to borrow;
For they steadfastly sucked every one his stick,
And most bitterly thought of the morrow.
They thought, as the dramatist chaffed them to death,
And foreshadowed their doom so plainly,
That they next morning, with feverish breath,
Might demand devilled prawns all vainly;
That their faith in the curried egg might go,
And a cayenne salad not serve them,
Nor champagne cheer when their "tone" was low,
Nor a fricassee'd oyster nerve them!
They felt that the power to attention gain
Would surely henceforth evade them,
And that public contempt would let them remain
In the grave where a "Blue Beard" had laid them.
And so, when Burnand his task had done,
And received a right warm ovation,
Of all the Mashers was left not one;
'Twas complete annihilation.
And they buried them there, where they first were born,
With gardenias on them clustered—
In the mashing garbs that they long had worn—
Near the stalls where they'd nightly mustered.
Blithely and gaily they laid them down,
Nor heard was a sob nor a sigh there;
And they carved not a line and they raised not a stone—
For the Mashers were worthy of neither!
Truth, March 22, 1883.