“And so you want an excuse from me? Ho capito. Well, Bram, it’s a strange thing, but my rheumatism has suddenly become very bad and I’d be much obliged if you’d go down into Brigham and buy me a bottle of embrocation. Here’s five shillings. I don’t want the change. St. Jumbo’s Oil is the name of the embrocation. It’ll probably take you all the evening to find it, and if you don’t find it I shan’t really mind, because my rheumatism is bound to be much better by the time you come back.”
“I say, grandmamma, you are ... you are....”
But Bram could not find any word to describe her suitably without blushing too deeply to attempt it.
Blundell’s Diorama which filled the Brigham Corn Exchange (not much corn was sold there by this date) was an entertainment at which the least sophisticated would scoff in these cinematographic days. It consisted of a series of crude and highly coloured views of the world’s beauty spots treated in the panoramic manner of the drop-curtain. The lighting was achieved by gas footlights and floats with occasional assistance from amber, green, and crimson limes. Mr. Blundell himself, a gentleman with a moustache like an Aintree hurdle, and dressed in a costume that was something between a toreador’s, a cowboy’s, and an operatic brigand’s, stood in front to point out with a stock-rider’s whip the chief objects of interest in each picture that was unrolled for an absorbed audience.
“This scene to which I now have the pleasure of inviting your earnest attention represents the world-famous Bay of Naples. ‘Veedy Napowly ee poy morry,’ as Dante said. Dante, I may remind you was the Italian equivalent of our own William Shakespeare, the world-famous dramatic genius at whose house in Stratford-on-Avon we have already taken a little peep this evening. Yes, ‘See Naples and die,’ said the Italian poet. In other words, ‘Don’t waste your time over sprats when there’s whales to be caught.’ The world-famous fir-tree, on the extreme right of the picture as I stand, is reputed to be two thousand years old, and under its hoary branches it is said that the Emperor Nero held many of his most degraded orgies, which I shall not sully your eyes by exhibiting at an entertainment to which I flatter myself the youngest infant in Brigham can come without a blush. The waters of the Bay of Naples as you will note are always blue, and the inhabitants of the gay city are renowned for macaroni and musical abilities. With your kind permission the Sisters Garibaldi will now give you a slight impression of the atmosphere of Beller Napowly as it is affectionately called.”
Two young women dressed in ribbons and sequins immediately pranced on to sing Santa Lucia, while the lecturer beat time with his stockwhip, rolling occasionally a sentimental eye at the audience. When the music was over, he invited their attention to various architectural features in the landscape, and then, assuming a tragic profundity of tone, he continued:
“Hitherto all has been fair, but the words ‘See Naples and die’ have sometimes been fraught with a much deeper significance. On the extreme left as I stand you will observe towering above the unconscious city the mighty peak of Vesuvius, the world-famous volcano which from time to time commits the most horrible eruptions and threatens to overwhelm with boiling lava the gay city at its base. With your kind permission I shall now have the pleasure of giving you a realistic representation of the city of pleasure when threatened by one of the burning mountain’s all too frequent outbursts.”
He signalled with his whip to the limelight man at the back of the hall. Whereupon after a loud preliminary fizzing a crimson glow suffused the whole picture, while the orchestra, consisting of a piano, a flageolet, and a double-bass, played the “Dead March” from Saul.
“Our next picture shows you the world-famous Alhambra of Granada by moonlight....”
No tragedy here, but a transparency moon and a pas de deux by the Sisters Garibaldi accompanied by castanets, which on the authority of Mr. Blundell was a lifelike rendering of the world-famous Spanish fandango....