Page:Punch and judy.djvu/120

Act II.

Enter a Figure dressed like a Courtier, who sings a slow air, and moves to it with great gravity and solemnity. He first takes off his hat on the right of the theatre, and then on the left, and carries it in his hand. He then stops in the centre; the music ceases, and suddenly his throat begins to elongate, and his head gradually rises until his neck is taller than all the rest of his body. After pausing for some time, the head sinks again; and, as soon as it has descended to its natural place, the Figure exits.^[1]

Enter Punch from behind the curtain, where he had been watching the manœuvres of the Figure.

Punch. Who the devil are you, me should like to know, with your long neck? You may get it stretched for you, one of these days, by somebody else.^[2] It's a very fine day. (peeping out, and looking up at the sky) I'll go fetch my horse, and take a ride to visit my pretty Poll, (he sings to the tune of "Sally in our Alley")

Of all the girls that are so smart,
There's none like pretty Polly:
She's the darling of my heart,
She is so plump and jolly.

Exit, singing.

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1. This scene is peculiar to Piccini, and he defies all the other exhibitors of Puppet-shows in England to make the figure take off the hat with one hand. This is the true reason for its introduction; and it is not easy to see in what way it relates to Mr. Punch and his adventures, unless, as he is now in the midst of his career of vice and crime, the stretching of the neck is to be taken as an awful forewarning of the danger of the same kind the hero is likely to incur under the hands of Jack Ketch.

   "You have done well,
   That men must lay their murders on your neck."

   is a passage in "Othello."—If it be meant that Punch should lay his murders on the neck of this mysterious personage, it is clear that there is room enough for all of them.

2. "I pr'ythee keep that for the hangman."—"Henry IV. Part I." And Punch might add, as the forewarner appears to