In the right-hand upper corner he appeared running across country on all fours, with a red herring sticking out from his coat-tails, while far behind came hounds and horsemen hunting him. But their chance of ever catching him up was clearly hopeless.
To the left he was represented as running away over one of the wildest and most rugged bits of landscape we have ever seen with a very big man on his back. Six policemen stood scattered about a mile behind him. They had evidently been running after him, but had at last given up the pursuit as useless.
In the center of the poster he was having a friendly fight with seventeen ladies and gentlemen. Judging from the costumes, the affair appeared to be a wedding. A few of the guests had already been killed and lay dead about the floor. The survivors, however, were enjoying themselves immensely, and of all that gay group he was the gayest.
At the moment chosen by the artist, he had just succeeded in cracking the bridegroom's skull.
"We must see this," said we to ourselves. "This is good." And we had a bob's worth.
But he did not do any of the things that we have mentioned, after all—at least, we mean we did not see him do any of them. It seems he did them "off," and then came on and told his mother all about it afterward.
He told it very well, but somehow or other we were disappointed. We had so reckoned on that fight.
By the bye, we have noticed, even among the characters of real life, a tendency to perform most of their wonderful feats "off."
It has been our privilege since then to gaze upon many posters on which have been delineated strange and moving stage events.
We have seen the hero holding the villain up high above his head, and throwing him about that carelessly that we have felt afraid he would break something with him.