(Try to paint this scene visibly for the audience; background is essential for what is to come.)
A storm had bin ’anging about all day (and it broke, you’ll remember, at last!)
So I ’urried on, it was gettin’ late—and the Gineral sinking fast!
(You are now approaching the harrowing part, but keep yourself in reserve for the present.)
But all on a sudding I ’eard him give a kind of a feeble flap,
And I stops, and sez in a ’opeful way, “Why, you’re up in yer sterrups, old chap.”
(A bold metapher applied to a bird, but characteristic in the speaker.)
(Sink your voice.) Then I see by the look of his sorrowful eye he was thinkin’: “Afore I go,
I’d like to see one performance—for the last—of the dear old Show!”
(Note, and make your audience feel, the touch of Nature here.)