“I Have to Watch Charlotte!”
When the young polyphonist has acquired some degree of skill, he need not be at a loss to entertain his friends, provided he is fairly resourceful as regards acting. But acting is of the greatest importance to the polyphonist. As a knife-grinder he must work an imaginary wheel, and deftly turn the blade of a table knife upon the stone; as a waiter about to “pop” a cork with a strong click of the tongue against the palate—he should first insert a shadowy cork-screw with a chirrupy squeak; and as a cook frizzling bacon, he may do a cardboard rasher to a turn on a battledore or fire-shovel. Even the buzz of a bluebottle (made sometimes by a prolonged cornet note, sometimes by a stream of air forced through the compressed lips) will occasion much amusement if the performer acts the part of a languid mortal lolling behind his newspaper in the dog days, and murmuring,—
"Oh! for the green of a lane,
Where one might lie and be lazy!
Buzz! goes a fly in the pane—
Bluebottles drive me crazy!"
Then might follow a reckless chase after that fly, which should finally buzz itself crazy beneath the huntsman’s handkerchief. Again, the barking of dogs may not be much in itself, yet we have seen a performer cause roars of laughter by making his phantom poodles dance, tumble, and leap over chairs and through a hoop, to a lively tune on the piano.
As a final step in polyphony, the learner should practise the ventriloquial treatment of noises. This adds greatly to the effectiveness of a ventriloquial sketch; as when the man in the cellar takes to sawing and planing; or goes home accompanied by a dog, whose barking, mingled with the shouts of the man, grows fainter and fainter in the distance; or, it may be, the moaning of the wind is heard without, while a last-century watchman proclaims the hour in a storm-tossed voice.
To show how perfect such displays may become, we may instance the case of Thomas Ring, a conjurer who gave an entertainment before the entire English Court in the seventeenth century. From behind a screen he imitated the voices of three butchers engaged in a conversation, which was presently interrupted by a barking dog. The dog having been whipped, a bleating calf was dragged in, a knife whetted, and the calf killed amid the talk and laughter of the men. All this is, no doubt, within the reach of some of our living ventriloquists.
“Bluebottles Drive Me Crazy!”
