‘As I one day was hawking my ware,
I thought I’d invent something novel and rare;
For as I’m not green, and I know what’s o’clock,
So I’ll have a go in at the pine-apple rock.
Tol de ro lay, tol de ro lay.’
“Then Billy becomes quiet again, and the doctor says, ‘I’ll now, ladies and gentlemen, touch him on another fakement, and cause Billy to cry. This here is his organ of the handling department.’ Then he takes Billy’s finger and bites it, and Billy begins to roar like a town bull. Then the doctor says, ‘I’ll now, ladies and gentlemen, touch him on another fakement, whereby the youth can tell me what I’ve got in my hand.’ He then puts his hand in his coat-tail pocket, and says, ‘Billy, what have I got in my hand?’ and Billy says, ‘Ah, you nasty beast! why it’s a—it’s a—it’s a—oh, I don’t like to say!’ They do this a lot of times, Billy always replying, ‘Oh, I don’t like to say!’ until at last he promises that, if he won’t tell his mother, he will; and then he says, ‘It’s a small-tooth comb.’ ‘Very right, Billy; and what’s in it?’ ‘Why, one of them ’ere things that crawls.’ ‘Very right, Billy; and what is it?’ ‘Why, it’s a—it’s a black-beetle.’ ‘Very right, Billy; look again. Do you see anything else?’ ‘There’s some crumbs.’ Then he tells Billy, that as he is such a good boy he’ll bring him to; and Billy says, ‘Oh, don’t, please, sir; one’s quite enough.’ Then he brings him to, and Billy says, ‘Oh, ain’t it nice! Oh, it’s so golly! Here, you young woman, I wish you’d let me touch your bumps.’ Then, if the people laugh, he adds, ‘You may laugh, but it gives you a all-over sort of a feeling, as if you had drunk three pints of pickling vinegar.’
“That’s a very favourite scene; but I haven’t give it you all, for it would fill a volume. It always makes a hit; and Billy has a rare chance of working comic attitudes and so on when the doctor touches his bumps.
“There’s another very celebrated scene for Silly Billy. It’s what we call the preaching scene. Silly Billy mounts up a ladder, and Clown holds it at the bottom, and looks through the steps. Clown has to do the clerk to Billy’s parson. Billy begins by telling the clerk that he must say ‘Barley sugar’ at the end of every sentence he preaches. Billy begins in this way:—‘Keyind brethren, and you fair damsels,’ and he’s supposed to be addressing the chaps and gals on the parade, ‘I hope that the text I shall give you will be a moral to you, and prevent you from eating the forbidden sweets of—’ ‘Barley sugar!’ ‘No, you fool—sin! and that will put you in the right path as you walk through the fields of—’ ‘Barley sugar!’ ‘No; virtue, you fool! My text is taken from the epistle of Thomas to the Ethiopians, the first chapter, and two first slices off a leg of mutton, where it says so beautifully—’ ‘Barley sugar!’ ‘No, no; that’s not it! Now it come to go along in the first year in the first month, two days before that, as we was journeying through the land of—’ ‘Barley sugar!’ ‘No, no, you fool! keep quiet. Flowerpotamia, we met a serpent, and from his mouth was issuing—’ ‘Barley sugar!’ ‘No, no! fire.’ Then all the people on the parade jump up and shout, ‘Where?’ Then Billy says, ‘Oh, my sister’s tom-cat, here’s a congregation! Sit down.’ When they are all quiet again, Billy goes on: ‘Now this I say unto you—’ ‘Barley sugar!’ ‘Keep quiet, will you!’ and he hits Clown with his foot. ‘Two shall be well and two shall be queer. Oh, ain’t I ill! Go, men of little understanding, and inherit a basin of pea-soup at the cook-shop, together with—’ ‘Barley sugar!’ ‘No such thing!—my blessing. Unto you will I give nothing, and unto you just half as much—’ ‘Barley sugar!’ ‘Hold your tongue! You that have had nothing shall give it back again, and you that had nothing at all, you shall keep it. Now let us sing—’ ‘Barley sugar!’ ‘No; a song.’ Then Billy tells them to get their books, and they take up pint pots, or whatever they can get. ‘Let us sing,’ and they all jump up, and they all begin:
‘If I was a drayman’s horse
One quarter of the year,