PUNCH.—You have degraded the drama by the introduction of card-shufflers and thimble-rig impostors.
RUSS.—We denies the thimble-rigging in totum, my lud; that was brought out at Stanley’s opposition booth.
PUNCH.—At least you were a promoter of state conjuring and legerdemain tricks on the stage.
RUSS.—Only a little hanky-panky, my lud. The people likes it; they loves to be cheated before their faces. One, two, three—presto—begone. I’ll show your ludship as pretty a trick of putting a piece of money in your eye and taking it out of your elbow, as you ever beheld. Has your ludship got such a thing as a good shilling about you? ’Pon my honour, I’ll return it.
PUNCH.—Be more respectful, sir, and reply to my questions. It appears further, that several respectable persons have lost their honesty in your booth.
RUSS.—Very little of that ’ere commodity is ever brought into it, my lud.
PUNCH.—And, in short, that you and your colleagues’ hands have been frequently found in the pockets of your audience.
RUSS.—Only in a professional way, my lud—strictly professional.
PUNCH.—But the most serious charge of all is that, on a recent occasion, when the audience hissed your performances, you put out the lights, let in the swell-mob, and raised a cry of “No Corn Laws.”
RUSS.—Why, my lud, on that p’int I admit there was a slight row.