I’d put my tail where my head ought to be,
And I’d drink up all the—’
‘Barley sugar!’—‘Hold your tongue!—beer.’ After all of them have sung, Billy says, ‘Now let us say,’ and all of them howl, ‘Aye, aye.’
‘Now is the winter of our discontent—
We have not enough money to pay our rent;
And by all the clouds that tip our house,
We’ve not enough food to feed a ——’
‘Barley sugar!’ ‘Yes, barley sugar,’ says Billy. Then all the congregation cries—‘O—o—o—o;’ and Clown says, ‘Bar—bar—bar—barley sugar,’ and he is so much affected he weeps and goes to wipe his eyes, and lets the ladder fall, and down comes Billy. He gives sundry kicks, and then pretends to be dying. The congregation say, ‘Peace be with you, Billy,’ and he answers, ‘Yes, peas-pudding and fried taters;’ and the Clown howls out, ‘Barley sugar!’ When Billy is dead, if business isn’t very good, they put the body on the ladder, and form a procession. The music goes at the head and plays a hornpipe, slowly, and then they leave the booth, and parade through the fair among the people, with Clown as chief mourner. The people are bursting their sides, and wherever we go they follow after. All the mourners keep crying, ‘Oh, oh, oh, Billy’s dead!’ and then Billy turns round, and sometimes says, ‘Don’t be fools! it’s only a lark:’ or else, ‘Don’t tell mother; she’ll give me a hiding.’ This procession business always brings a flock behind us, and fills the theatre, or goes a great way towards it. When I have been Silly Billy, and representing this scene, and been carried through the fair, I’ve been black and blue from the girls coming up and pinching me through the ladder. The girls are wonderfully cheeky at fairs, and all for a lark. They used to get me so precious wild, I couldn’t help coming to life, and say, ‘Quiet, you hussies!’ But it were no good, for they’d follow you all about, and keep on nipping a fellow.
“Another celebrated scene or sketch is the teetotal one, and a rich one it is. Billy is supposed to have joined the temperance parties. He calls for a tub to preach upon, and he says he will consider it a favour if they could let it be a water-butt. They lift Billy on to the tub, and a cove—Clown generally—sits under to take the chair of the meeting. Then the paraders stand about, and I begin: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, waking friends, and lazy enemies, and Mr. Chairman, what I’m about to tell you I’m a stanch teetotaler.’ ‘Hear, hear, hear,’ everybody cries. ‘I have been so for now two—’ and the Clown suggests ‘Years.’ ‘No, minutes. I’d have you avoid water as you would avoid a bull that wasn’t in a chaney-shop.’ ‘Hear, hear, hear.’ ‘I once knew a friend of mine who drank water till he was one solid mass of ice; and he drank tea till the leaves grew out of his nose.’ ‘Oh, oh, hear, hear.’ ‘He got so fat, you couldn’t see him. This, my friends, comes of tea-drinking!’ ‘Hear, hear, hear.’ ‘I hope, kind friends, this will be a lesson to you to avoid drinking too much’—Then the chairman jumps up and says, ‘Beer!’ ‘No, no; tea. Drink in moderation, and never drink more than I do. Two pots of ale, three pints of porter, four glasses of gin, five of rum, and six of brandy, is enough for any man at one time. Don’t drink more, please.’ ‘Hear, hear, hear.’ ‘That will cause you to be in the height of bloom. Your nose will blossom; your eyes will be bright as two burnt holes in a blanket; your head will swell till no hat will fit it. These are facts, my friends; undeniable facts, my kind friends.’ ‘Hear, hear, hear.’ ‘You will get so fat, you’ll take up the pavement to walk. I believe, and I trust, that what I have said will not convince you that teetotalism and coffeetotalism are the best things ever invented. Sign the pledge. The pledge-book is here. You must all pay a penny; and if you don’t keep up your payments, you will be scratched. With these few remarks I now conclude my address to you, hoping that every friend among you is so benevolent as to subscribe a pot of beer. I shall be happy to drink it, to show you how awful a thing it is not to become a teetotaller.’ Then they all rush forward to sign the pledge, and they knock Clown over, and he tumbles Silly Billy into the barrel up to his neck. Then we all sing
‘I likes a drop of good beer,