Then came the episode of the hangman, and the quavering note of fear in Punch's voice found a responsive echo in her own.
"He's going to be hanged," said Ruby gloatingly.
Jenny began to feel uneasy. Even in this irresponsible world, there was unpleasantness in the background.
Then came the ghost—a terrifying figure. And then came a green dragon, with cruel, snapping jaws—even more terrifying—but most terrifying of all was Ruby's answer to her whispered inquiry:
"Because Punch was a bad, wicked man."
The street so crudely painted on the back of the puppet-show took on suddenly a strange and uninviting emptiness, seemed to stand out behind the figures with a horrid likeness to Hagworth Street, to Hagworth Street in a bad dream devoid of friendly faces. Was a green dragon the end of pleasure? It was all very disconcerting.
The play was over; the halfpennies had been gathered in. The lamplighter was coming round, and through the dusk the noise of pipe and drums slowly grew faint in the distance with a melancholy foreboding of finality.
Jenny's brain was buzzing with a multitude of self-contradictory impressions. For once, in a way, she was glad to hold tightly on to Ruby's rough, red hand. But the conversation between Ruby and another big girl on the way home was not encouraging.
"And she was found in an area with her throat cut open in a stream of blood, and the man as did it got away and ain't been caught yet."