ON THE STAGE AND OFF

PROMPT BUT NOT PREPARED.

[The call-boy has just called that distinguished amateur Muddle, who is
doing Iago for the first time.]

Muddle. Very odd! Knew every word of it this morning, too, but I’ll be hanged if I can remember how it begins!

A WORDLESS STORY.

EMMA AND ULPHO
A DRAMA IN FIVE ACTS
WRITTEN FOR EASTER, SANCTIONED BY THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN,
BUT REJECTED BY ALL THE THEATRES.

ACT I.

(A dark night. The curtain rises, and discovers nobody on the stage.)

(Ulpho speaks.) How dark it is.

(He is answered by a hollow voice which is inaudible.)

Ulpho. I do not feel comfortable, nor as I once did. (Sighs.)

(The stage gradually fills till Ulpho is forced forward to the footlights, which go out. The crowd parts asunder suddenly, and a figure comes slowly forward.)

Figure. (Says nothing.)

Ulpho. I feel chilly.

(Figure smiles contemptuously and puts his hands in his breeches’ pockets. He then addresses Ulpho silently, and, after hesitating more than once, breaks down at last altogether.)

ACT II.

(Still darker night. Graves spring their rattles and watchmen open. Fate is seen sitting in the background in the shape of a policeman. A glow-worm roars, and the side-scenes shake perceptibly. The moon, which has been slowly rising, falls suddenly down.)

Ulpho. Unfortunate moon!

Emma. Will you never cease to despond?

Ulpho. Nothing on earth shall ever induce me.

(He takes his cap from his head, and hangs it carefully on a hat-stand. In a fit of desperation he begins to tear his hair from his head. Emma sinks into a swoon, and leaving Ulpho in the centre of the stage, she goes off at both wings.)

ACT III.

(The morning breaks, and is already in many pieces. The first rays of the sun are reflected in several hundred dewdrops which are rocking themselves in the gently waving brush-wood. Two masks drop from the trees and rush on each other’s swords.)

1st Mask. Are you dead?

2nd Mask. Only parts of me.

Enter Emma.

1st Mask. Lady, may I ask if you have any present intention of giving up the ghost, if so, perhaps I could——?

Emma. I am much obliged to you, but I have already made my own arrangements——

(A pair of jack-boots are carried across the stage.)

Emma. Are those, perhaps, the mortal remains of my Ulpho?

(Ulpho enters in carpet slippers.)

Ulpho. I am still alive, but I wear boots no more.

(The river rises, and a Dragoon Regiment, which has been stationed on the opposite bank, are carried away, one by one, by the flood. Ulpho fetches an umbrella from the side scenes.)

Emma. Would we could share it together!

(Ulpho is about to give it to her, when a thunderbolt descends, and the umbrella falls between them.)

Ulpho. Fate has decided otherwise.

(They embrace, and the curtain falls in an agitated manner.)

ACT IV.

(Enter an old man with a very broad-brimmed hat.)

Old Man. Woe! Woe!

Ulpho. What brought you here?

Old Man (wildly). Can I never preserve my incognito?

[He stabs himself.

Emma (regarding the body).

A fate like his I must admire;
How pleasant must it be to die?
Not otherwise would I expire,
And you, my Ulpho, standing by.

[She stabs herself.

Ulpho. Ah! now I feel lighter, better.

[He starves himself to death.

ACT V.

Enter the Duke: A lay figure is also brought on to the stage.

Lay Figure. Behold the victims of thy revenge.

[Grand scena—Furies enter and tear the Duke slowly to pieces. The end of the drama now approaches rapidly, and whilst everything is trembling in every direction, the Prompter rushes on to the small piece of stage still remaining, and stabs himself with a pair of snuffers, and

THE CURTAIN AND THE THEATRE FALL TOGETHER.

Punch, 1844.