“‘Call-hunting,’—that’s another term for dwelling on orders—pays better than pitching; but orders is wery casual, and pitching is a certainty. We’re sure of a brown or two in the streets, and noblemen’s work don’t come often. We must have it authentick, for we travels many days and don’t succeed in getting one; at other times we are more fluent; but when both combine together, it’s merely a living, after all’s said and done, by great exertion and hard perseverance and asidity, for the business gets slacker and slacker every year, and I expect at last it will come to the dogs—not Toby, because he is dead and gone. People isn’t getting tired with our performances; they’re more delighted than ever; but they’re stingier. Everybody looks twice at their money afore they parts with it.—That’s a rub at the mean ones, and they wants it uncommon bad.
“And then, sometimes the blinds is all drawed down, on account of the sun, and that cooks our goose; or, it’s too hot for people to stop and varder—that means, see. In the cold days, when we pitch, people stops a few minutes, drops their browns, and goes away about their business, to make room for more. The spring of the year is the best of the four seasons for us.
“A sailor and a lass half-seas over we like best of all. He will tip his mag. We always ensure a few pence, and sometimes a shilling, of them. We are fond of sweeps, too; they’re a sure brown, if they’ve got one, and they’ll give before many a gentleman. But what we can’t abide nohow is the shabby genteel—them altray cativa, and no mistake: for they’ll stand with their mouths wide open, like a nut-cracker, and is never satisfied, and is too grand even to laugh. It’s too much trouble to carry ha’pence, and they’ve never no change, or else they’d give us some; in fact, they’ve no money at all, they wants it all for, &c.”
Mr. Punch’s Figures.
“This is Punch; this his wife, Judy. They never was married, not for this eight hundred years—in the original drama. It is a drama in two acts, is Punch. There was a Miss Polly, and she was Punch’s mistress, and dressed in silks and satins. Judy catches Punch with her, and that there causes all the disturbance. Ah, it’s a beautiful history; there’s a deal of morals with it, and there’s a large volume wrote about it. It’s to be got now.
“This here is Judy, their only child. She’s three years old come to-morrow, and heir to all his estate, which is only a saucepan without a handle.
“Well, then I brings out the Beadle.
“Punch’s nose is the hornament to his face. It’s a great walue, and the hump on his back is never to be got rid on, being born with him, and never to be done without. Punch was silly and out of his mind—which is in the drama—and the cause of his throwing his child out of winder, vich he did. Judy went out and left him to nurse the child, and the child gets so terrible cross he gets out of patience, and tries to sing a song to it, and ends by chucking it into the street.
“Punch is cunning, and up to all kinds of antics, if he ain’t out of his mind. Artful like. My opinion of Punch is, he’s very incentric, with good and bad morals attached. Very good he was in regard to benevolence; because, you see, in the olden style there was a blind man, and he used to come and ax charity of him, and Punch used to pity him and give him a trifle, you know. This is in the olden style, from Porsini you know.
“The carving on his face is a great art, and there’s only one man as does it reg’lar. His nose and chin, by meeting together, we thinks the great beauty. Oh, he’s admirable!—He was very fond of hisself when he was alive. His name was Punchinello, and we calls him Punch. That’s partly for short and partly on account of the boys, for they calls it Punch in hell O. ‘Oh, there’s Punch in hell,’ they’d say, and gennelfolks don’t like to hear them words.