The shepherds fled, the curs! but I was not to be chizzled,
So with a chosen few after the fellows we mizzled;
We fought and larrupped 'em all! indeed, it isn't a flam,
I stole the togs of the chief, and, blow me, here I am!
Tol lol, etc.
We have already seen that, in his "Quadrupeds of Quedlinburgh," Colman junior extracted some fun out of scenes in "The Stranger," "Pizarro," and "Timour the Tartar." The first of these plays was made the subject of more elaborate satire in 1868, when Mr. Robert Reece wrote for the New Queen's Theatre his burlesque called "The Stranger, Stranger than Ever!" This, with Miss Santley as Peter, Mr. Lionel Brough as the Stranger, and Miss Henrietta Hodson as Mrs. Haller, had many points of attraction. In this reductio ad absurdum the lady's chief complaint is that her husband first neglected her and then deserted her, taking away the children. Moreover, "he taught the infants all the comic songs," and so, "instead of gloating over Peter Parley, the boy declared himself as Champagne Charley." In despair the deserted one set to work and took in washing:—
You'll ask, "why washing?"—give your fancy scope:
In that profession while there's life there's soap!
Was I to live?—of course came this suggestion!
"Tub be or not tub be?" that was the question.
So with a will I turned me to my work,
Carried a blue bag like a lawyer's clerk;
Yet still I grieved—the trade's of woe prolific,
I couldn't sleep, for all this soap-horrific;
Hard was my lot, for I could plainly see
My source of living must end sud-denly;
And in her downward course, say, what could stop her
Whose sole subsistence was a single copper?
As usual with Mr. Reece, the puns are excellent. Tobias says of the stranger that
Each evening you may see him sitting so,
Under that linden when the sun was low;
On close inspection, too, you'll also see
His noble eye, sir, rolling rapidly.
Then the Stranger says to Peter:—
Mrs. Haller's gifts you showed,
As hint that I should help you Haller-mode.
To the Countess he remarks:—
Madam, this river-water's eau-de-riverous!
And of his children he says:—