Seven years later Mr. Burnand wrote a burlesque called "Faust and Marguerite" for the St. James's. He had Ashley for his Faust, Charles Mathews and Mrs. Charles Mathews for his Mephistopheles and Marguerite, H. J. Montague for his Valentine, and "Johnny" Clarke for his Martha. In this instance he followed the story of the opera pretty closely till near the end, when Faust was sued for breach of promise of marriage, and escaped the clutches of Mephistopheles only by consenting to pair off with Martha! A visit to a music-hall formed part of the action, and gave occasion for some pointed lines. Said Faust:—
I'm saddened by your modern comic singing;
and Mephistopheles went on to describe the scene:—
There sat the draper's clerk, who wildly loves
The tenth-rate prima donna in cleaned gloves;
The would-be swell, who thinks it mighty grand
To shake the comic singer by the hand;
Who pays for his amusement through the nose,
And stands not on the order of his "goes."
He thinks the dark girls dressed in blue first-raters,
And is familiar with the seedy waiters;
He sips his sling or takes some sort of toddy,
And encores everything and everybody.
Marguerite says at one point—
That circled orb, you think, 's the moon; it ain't:
We know 'tis but a circle daub of paint.
And she remarks elsewhere that
The minnow is the minnow-mum of fishes.
Faust says, in one place—
Our prima donna, sir, has gone, I guess,
To make herself primmer and to don her dress.