I was that estonished at this wunderfull rewelashun that I was struck dum for a minnet, while the jolly party rapped the table and cried, "Bravo!" But I soon pulled myself together, and, going up quietly behind the kind-arted Gent, I says, in a whisper, "Please, Sir, will you kindly let me be a subscriber?" And he did, and I paid my shilling, and sined my name, amid the cheers of the cumpny, and then retired, as prowd as a Alderman. But what a fact for an Hed Waiter to ponder hover! A dinner for a hapenny! and the dinner as this jolly party had bin a eating cost, I dessay, quite thirty shillings a head, which I makes out to be, not being a werry grand skoller, about enuff for some seven hunderd pore children's dinners! I leaves to stronger heds than mine to calkerlate how many pore children the bill for the hole twenty wood have paid for; Brown says ewer so many thousands; but Brown does always xagerate so.
Robert.
"HER MAJESTY'S OPPOSITION."
Augustus Druriolanus Imperator, of course, represents "the Government," and Messrs. H. J. Leslie and Harris (Charles of that ilk) are "Her Majesty's Opposition," who are to be congratulated on their Pantomime of Cinderella at Her Majesty's Theatre. Having purchased the book,—which must be classed among the "good books" of the season,—I can say decidedly that there is a considerable, though not a material, difference between the Pantomime Cinderella "as she is wrote" by the two pretty men "Messrs. Richard and Henry,"—whose surnames, I am informed, are synonymous with those of a great English theologian and a still greater English astronomer,—and "the Pantomime Cinderella" as she is now performed at Her Majesty's. "Cut and run" must ever be the motto of the Playright's and the theatrical Manager's action; but what astonished me, before I consulted the book, was the omission on the stage of the striking dramatic climax,—especially striking, because a clock is involved in it,—of Cinderella's story.
Portrait of Cinderella "Palmer quæ meruit." A Minnie-ture.
Could I believe my eyes, when, after a magnificent ball-room scene, where the colours are grouped with consummate skill and taste, I saw the handsome prince Miss Robina remplaçante of Miss Violet Cameron, lead to her place in the centre of that glittering throng the petite et pétillante Cinderella in her Court dress, wearing her little glass slippers (very little slippers, and very little glass), and then, nothing happened, except that the next Scene descended, and hid them from view.
But, Heavens! had the Clock in the Palace Yard stopped? Had its works got out of order? Had it followed the example of the Dock and Gasmen, and "struck," by refusing to strike? Ah! "Inventor and Producer," Ah! Mr. H. J. Leslie, "Ah!" to everyone who had a hand in this sacrilege; "Ah!" on behalf of Messrs. Richard and Henry, who could not have yielded this point except under a strong protest,—please restore this. We would all of us from eight years old (permitted by home licence to go to theatres at night during Christmas holidays), and up to over fifty (compelled to go to look after the others, and delighted to do so)—we would all of us rather hear the clock strike twelve, see Cinderella in rags, running for bare life, see the Prince in despair at the flight of his partner, on whose card his name was down for sixteen more valses and galops, than witness a black-and-white dance, with fans, pretty in itself, and set to very pretty Solomonesque music, but meaningless as regards plot.