Scene 3. This scene was delayed for the collector again to come round with his hat:—“You can’t expect us to show you all for what you’ve given. Money if you please; money; we want your money!” As soon as he had extracted the last extractable halfpenny, the curtain drew up, and—enter a clown without a head, who danced till his head came from between his shoulders to the wonder of the children, and, almost to their alarm, was elevated on a neck the full length of his body, which it thrust out ever and anon; after presenting greater contortions than the human figure could possibly represent, the curtain fell the third time.
Scene 4. Another delay of the curtain for another collection, “We have four and twenty scenes,” said the collector, “and if you are not liberal we can’t show ’em all—we must go.” This extorted something more, and one person at a window, who had sent three-pence from a house where other money had been given, now sent out a shilling, with a request that “all” might be exhibited. The showman promised, the curtain drew up, and another puppet-tumbler appeared with a pole which, being placed laterally on the back of two baby-house chairs, he balanced himself on it, stood heels upwards upon it, took the chairs up by it, balanced them on each end of it, and down fell the curtain.
Scene 5. A puppet sailor danced a hornpipe.
Scene 6. A puppet Indian juggler threw balls.
Scene 7. Before the curtain drew up the collector said, “This is the representation of Billy Waters, Esq.” and a puppet, Billy Waters, appeared with a wooden leg, and danced to the sound of his fiddle for a minute or two when the curtain dropped, and the manager and performers went off with their theatre, leaving the remaining seventeen scenes, if they had them, unrepresented. On the show was painted, “Candler’s Fantoccini, patronised by the Royal Family.” Our old acquaintance, “Punch,” will survive all this.
[257] Aikin’s Nat. Hist. of the Year.