CHAPTER IV.
But mark the sequel. The good Bishop had been quite ignorant that the threepenny bit was a pewter one; quite sincere, for the time, in his determination to subdue his own weakness. Still it was not to be: inbred pride is not so easily vanquished—even by Bishops! The Bishop learned to glory in his blacking far more than he had ever done in the original mahogany. He had it continually renewed, and with the most expensive compositions. He would bend enraptured over the burnished surfaces of his extended legs, gazing, like another Narcissus, at the features he saw so faithfully repeated.
Meanwhile the threepence, base as it was, became the humble instrument of brighter fortunes to BRUSTLES; it showed a marvellous aptitude for turning up tails, which BEN no sooner perceived than he availed himself of a blessing that had, indeed, come to him in disguise!
But the Bishop—what of him? Nemesis overtook him at last. The discontent long smouldering in his diocese broke out into a climax. Thousands of Curates, inflamed by professional agitators, went out on strike, and their first victim was the Bishop of TIMBERTOWS, who was discovered prostrate one dark night by his horrified Chaplain. He had been picketed as a Blackleg!
THE END.
(Copies of the above may be obtained for distribution, at very reasonable terms, on application to the Author.)
PLAYTIME FOR A DOLL'S HOUSE.
DEAR MR. PUNCH,—According to a well-known Critic, writing of a morning performance of The Doll's House on Tuesday, the 27th ult., at Terry's Theatre, "There is no need to discuss IBSEN's piece any more." I will go a little further, and say, not only should the play be spared discussion, but also performance. All that could be done for this miserable drama (if a work utterly devoid of dramatic interest can be so entitled) was effected some years since, when Breaking a Butterfly, a version with Messrs. HERMAN and JONES as adapters, was played at the Prince's (now Prince of Wales's) Theatre. I believe some one or other has said that that version was misleading, because it modified IBSEN, and did not reveal him in his true colours. This I can readily believe, as my recollection of Breaking a Butterfly merely suggests boredom; whereas, when I consider The Doll's House of Tuesday, I distinctly mingle with boredom a recollection of something that caused a feeling of absolute loathing. That something, I imagine, must be the new matter which was absent from the first version, and crops up in the text of the second, which, according to the Play-bill, appears "in Vol. I. of the authorised edition of IBSEN's Prose Dramas, edited by WILLIAM ARCHER, and published by Mr. WALTER SCOTT." By the way, I must confess that, although the name of the Editor is not familiar to me as a dramatic author, his superintendence of the authorised text seems to have been performed sufficiently creditably to have rendered him as worthy of an honourable prefix as the publisher. Why omit the "Mr."? Now I come to think of it, there is an Englishman, not unconnected with dramatic literature, who is known nowadays as WILLIAM, without the prefix of Mister, but in his own time he was known as Master WILLIAM SHAKSPEARE, and Master he remains. "But this," as Mr. RUDYARD KIPLING might observe, "is quite another WILLIAM."
