IN THE CHILDREN'S GALLERY.
An Aunt (who finds the excellent Catalogue a mine of useful information). Look, BOBBY, dear (reading). "Here we have CONSTANTINE'S Cat, as seen in the 'Nights of Straparola,' an Italian romancist, whose book was translated into French in the year 1585—"
Bobby (disappointed). Oh, then it isn't Puss in Boots!
A Genial Grandfather (pausing before "Crusoe and Friday"). Well, PERCY, my boy, you know who that is, at all events—eh?
Percy. I suppose it is STANLEY—but it's not very like.
The G.G. STANLEY!—Why, bless my soul, never heard of Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday?
Percy. Oh, I've heard of them, of course—they come in Pantomimes—but I like more grown-up sort of books myself, you know. Is this girl asleep She?
The G.G. No—at least—well, I expect it's "The Sleeping Beauty." You remember her, of course—all about the ball, and the glass slipper, and her father picking a rose when the hedge grew round the palace, eh?
Percy. Ah, you see, Grandfather, you had more time for general reading than we get. (He looks through a practicable cottage window.) Hallo, a Dog and a Cat. Not badly stuffed!
The G.G. Why that must be "Old Mother Hubbard." (Quoting from memory.) "Old Mother Hubbard sat in a cupboard, eating a Christmas pie—or a bone was it?"
Percy. Don't know. It's not in Selections from British Poetry, which we have to get up for "rep."
The Aunt (reading from Catalogue). "The absurd ambulations of this antique person, and the equally absurd antics of her dog, need no recapitulation." Here's "Jack the Giant Killer" next. Listen, BOBBY, to what it says about him here. (Reads.) "It is clearly the last transmutation of the old British legend told by GEOFFREY of Monmouth, of CORINEUS the Trojan, the companion of the Trojan BRUTUS, when he first settled in Britain. But more than this"—I hope you're listening, BOBBY?—"more than this, it is quite evident, even to the superficial student of Greek mythology, that many of the main incidents and ornaments are borrowed from the tales of HESIOD and HOMER." Think of that, now!
[BOBBY thinks of it, with depression.
The G.G. (before figure of Aladdin's Uncle selling new lamps for old). Here you are, you see! "Ali Baba," got 'em all here, you see. Never read your "Arabian Nights," either! Is that the way they bring up boys nowadays!
Percy. Well, the fact is, Grandfather, that unless a fellow reads that kind of thing when he's young, he doesn't get a chance afterwards.
The Aunt (still quoting). "In the famous work," BOBBY, "by which we know MASÛDI, he mentions the Persian Hezar Afsane-um-um-um,—nor have commentators failed to notice that the occasion of the book written for the Princess HOMAI resembles the story told in the Hebrew Bible about ESTHER, her mother or grandmother, by some Persian Jew two or three centuries B.C." Well, I never knew that before!... This is "Sindbad and the Old Man of the Sea"—let's see what they say about him. (Reads.) "Both the story of Sindbad and the old Basque legend of Tartaro are undoubtedly borrowed from the Odyssey of HOMER, whose Iliad and Odyssey were translated into Syriac in the reign of HARUN-UR-RASHID." Dear, dear, how interesting, now! and, BOBBY, what do you think someone says about "Jack and the Beanstalk"? He says—"this tale is an allegory of the Teutonic Al-fader, the red hen representing the all-producing sun: the moneybags, the fertilising rain; and the harp, the winds." Well, I'm sure it seems likely enough, doesn't it?
[BOBBY suppresses a yawn; PERCY's feelings are outraged by receiving a tin trumpet from the Lucky Tub; general move to the scene of the Hampstead Tragedy.
Before the Hampstead Tableaux.
Spectators. Dear, dear, there's the dresser, you see, and the window, broken and all; it's wonderful how they can do it! And there's poor Mrs. 'OGG—it's real butter and a real loaf she's cutting, and the poor baby, too!... Here's the actual casts taken after they were murdered. Oh, and there's Mrs. PEARCEY wheeling the perambulator—it's the very perambulator! No, not the very one—they've got that at the other place, and the piece of toffee the baby sucked. Have they really! Oh, we must try and go there, too, before the children's holidays are over. And this is all? Well, well, everything very nice, I will say. But a pity they couldn't get the real perambulator!