The piece was called the "Terror of London," and it depicted the life of an apprentice who had departed from the ways of honesty to take up with bad companions in pot-houses, and was in four acts. The apprentice was of course the hero of the drama, and the author of the piece played the character of the abused apprentice. Whenever the apprentice kicked a policeman or threw one of his pursuers down a dark trap-door, there was great applause of his dexterity; but when the villain of the piece, a snaky-looking wretch, unworthy to breathe the "a-i-r-r-r of heving," slapped his hands after the commission of a fresh crime, he was received with derisive shouts and yells, which he, however, took as compliments to his histrionic skill.
The heroine of the piece was in love with the unfortunate and dissipated apprentice, and did nothing but clasp her hands and tear her hair at his "goings on." But at last she was roused to fury when the villain of the play followed the dishonest apprentice to his mother's grave to give him up to the police. The apprentice was discovered lying across a painted marble tombstone, and when the police entered, led on by the heavy villain, the heroine threw her body between him and his enemies, and drawing her form to its full height, she declaimed thus:
"The fust m-a-n who places his polyuted touch on the form of my nobil up-e-r-en-tis, though he were doubly armed with the king's authority, shall find his fate on the point of this pon-yard."
After this necessary outburst several more people were killed, and the whole concluded with the dying scene at Tyburn, the gallows, and the culprit, the bowl of ale, and the apprentice asking his friends if they would not prevent him from dying a disgraceful death. Here he makes an attempt to escape, and is pistoled admirably by the villain, who is convenient, and who is in turn pistoled by the apprentice's sweetheart, she being also ready at the proper moment for action. Then the curtain went down, and a stout girl, with fat legs and a green pair of tights, danced a hornpipe, which was loudly encored, the young lady being encouraged by such remarks as:
"Do you want some kidney pies?"
"Kick up, Miss Jenny."
"Don't mind the shoes; we pays for that."
"Tell the fiddlers to give it to yer 'otter—vy, yer not dancing at all!"
"DO YOU WANT SOME KIDNEY PIES?"