The question was not easily answered. The individual who provoked the remark was attired in most parsimonious silk drawers, with a sort of diminutive kilt around his waist. His head was decorated with a circle of particoloured feathers springing from a spangled circlet, not altogether unlike a highly decorated library-duster. On the whole, his costume was such as might have suited a Peruvian climate; but it was manifestly unfitted for the temperature of any untropical locality. By his side was a young lady similarly attired, only with a more liberal allowance of drapery, and rather more spangles upon her sleeves. The clown proceeded to chalk their soles with an expression of devout humility.
"These, I presume," said the Doctor, consulting the playbill, "are intended to represent the Inca and his bride; though what Incas had to do with horses, is utterly beyond my comprehension."
"They might have got them from the Spaniards, you know. Pizarro, is said to have been a liberal fellow in his way. I know a descendant of his at Cordova—"
"There they go—now for it!" said the Doctor. "I wonder if people ever galloped across a prairie in that way, holding one another by the hands, and standing each upon the point of one particular toe?"
"No more than Mercury ever chose to light upon the summit of a jet d'eau," said I. "But you are very prosaical and matter-of-fact to-night. See! up goes the lady on the Inca's knee. Do you call that attitude nothing? Why, even the master of the ring is so lost in admiration that he is forgetting to use his whip."
Here come the pole and ribbons. Yoicks! Capitally leaped! That young lady bounds over the cords as light and playfully as a panther. Surely the Inca is not going to disgrace himself by tumbling through a hoop? Yes, by the powers he is!—and a very fair somersault he has made of it! Now, then, put on the steam! Round they go like a whirlwind, attitudinising as if in agony. She looks behind her—starts—points; he turns his head—some imaginary foe must be in pursuit! Onwards—onwards, loving pair! One leap now, and ye are safe! It is a rasper, though—being nothing more nor less than a five-barred gate, speaking volumes in favour of early Peruvian agriculture. Over it they go both together; and Mr Merryman, in token of satisfaction, refreshes himself with a swim upon the sawdust!
"That course alone is worth the money," said I. "Now, Chief, unless you are bent upon prosecuting your conquest to the left, we may go. I feel a strong craving in my inner man for a draught of Barclay and Perkins."
"After all," remarked the Doctor, as we wended our way homewards, "there is something remarkably refreshing in the utter extravagance of the fictions which are presented at Astley's. They must keep in pay some author of very extraordinary genius. He never seems for a moment at a loss; and I doubt not that, at an hour's notice, he could get up a spectacle as brilliant as Aladdin's, in the Arabian Nights."
"I wish some of our friends would profit by the example," said I. "There is a fearful dearth of invention just now, especially in the fictional department; and if no speedy improvement takes place, I confess I do not know what is to become of the periodicals."
"I quite agree with you," remarked the Spaniard. "Some people are rather given to hunt an idea to death. For example, I am acquainted with a certain gentleman who can write about nothing except the railways. Every story of his has some connexion with scrip or shares, and the interest of the plot invariably turns upon a panic."