_Change of Scene for Second Act._
Scene draws up, and discovers the exterior of a prison, with Punch
peeping through the bars, and singing a merry song of the merry bells
of England, all of the olden time. (That’s an olden song, you know;
it’s old ancient, and it’s a moral,--a moral song, you know, to show
that Punch is repenting, but pleased, and yet don’t care nothink at
all about it, for he’s frolicsome, and on the height of his frolic and
amusement to all the juveniles, old and young, rich and poor. We must
put all classes together.)
_Enter Hangman Jack Ketch_, or Mr. GRABALL.
(That’s Jack Ketch’s name, you know; he takes all, when they gets in
his clutches. We mustn’t blame him for he must do his duty, for the
sheriffs is so close to him.)
[_Preparation commences for the execution of Punch. Punch is still
looking through the bars of Newgate._
The last scene as I had was Temple-bar Scene; it was a prison once, ye
know; that’s the old ancient, ye know, but I never let the others see
it, cos it shouldn’t become too public. But I think Newgate is better,
in the new edition, though the prison is suspended, it being rather too
terrific for the beholder. It was the old ancient style; the sentence
is passed upon him, but by whom not known; he’s not tried by one
person, cos nobody can’t.
_Jack Ketch._ Now, Mr. Punch, you are going to be executed by the
British and Foreign laws of this and other countries, and you are to be
hung up by the neck until you are dead--dead--dead.
_Punch._ What, am I to die three times?
_Jack._ No, no; you’re only to die once.
_Punch._ How is that? you said I was to be hung up by the neck till I
was dead--dead--dead? You can’t die three times.
_Jack._ Oh, no; only once.
_Punch._ Why, you said dead--dead--dead.
_Jack._ Yes; and when you are dead--dead--dead--you will be quite dead.
_Punch._ Oh! I never knowed that before.
_Jack._ Now, prepare yourself for execution.
_Punch._ What for?
_Jack._ For killing your wife, throwing your poor dear little innocent
baby out of the window, and striking the Beadle unmercifully over the
head with a mop-stick. Come on.
[_Exaunt Hangman behind Scene, and re-enter, leading Punch slowly
forth to the foot of the gallows. Punch comes most willingly, having
no sense._
_Jack._ Now, my boy, here is the corfin, here is the gibbet, and here
is the pall.
_Punch._ There’s the corfee-shop, there’s giblets, and there’s St.
Paul’s.
_Jack._ Get out, young foolish! Now then, place your head in here.
_Punch._ What, up here?
_Jack._ No; a little lower down.
(There’s quick business in this, you know; this is comic--a little
comic business, this is.)
_Punch._ (_Dodging the noose._) What, here?
_Jack._ No, no; in there (_showing the noose again_).
_Punch._ This way?
_Jack._ No, a little more this way; in there.
[_Punch falls down, and pretends he’s dead._
_Jack._ Get up, you’re not dead.
_Punch._ Oh, yes I am.
_Jack._ But I say, no.
_Punch._ Please, sir, (_bowing to the hangman_)--(Here he’s an
hypocrite; he wants to exempt himself,)--do show me the way, for I
never was hung before, and I don’t know the way. Please, sir, to show
me the way, and I’ll feel extremely obliged to you, and return you my
most sincere thanks.
(Now, that’s well worded, sir; it’s well put together; that’s my
beauty, that is; I am obliged to study my language, and not have any
thing vulgar whatsoever. All in simplicity, so that the young children
may not be taught anything wrong. There arn’t nothing to be learnt from
it, because of its simplicity.)
_Jack._ Very well; as you’re so kind and condescending, I will
certainly oblige you by showing you the way. Here, my boy! now, place
your head in here, like this (_hangman putting his head in noose_);
this is the right and the proper way; now, you see the rope is placed
under my chin; I’ll take my head out, and I will place yours in (that’s
a rhyme) and when your head is in the rope, you must turn round to the
ladies and gentlemen, and say--Good-by; fare you well.
(Very slowly then--a stop between each of the words; for that’s not
driving the people out of the world in quick haste without giving ’em
time for repentance. That’s another moral, yer see. Oh, I like all the
morals to it.)
_Punch_ (_quickly pulling the rope_). Good-by; fare you well. (_Hangs
the hangman._) (What a hypocrite he is again, yer see, for directly
he’s done it he says: ‘Now, I’m free again for frolic and fun;’ calls
Joey, the clown, his old friend, because they’re both full of tricks
and antics: ‘Joey, here’s a man hung hisself;’--that’s his hypocrisy
again, yer see, for he tries to get exempt after he’s done it hisself.)
_Enter_ CLOWN, _in quick haste, bobbing up against the gallows._
_Clown._ Dear me, I’ve run against a milk-post! Why, dear Mr. Punch,
you’ve hung a man! do take him down! How came you to do it?
_Punch._ He got wet through, and I hung him up to dry.
_Clown._ Dear me! why you’ve hung him up till he’s dried quite dead!
_Punch._ Poor fellow! then he won’t catch cold with the wet. Let’s put
him in this snuff-box. [_Pointing to coffin._
[_Joey takes the figure down and gives it to Punch to hold, so as the
body do not run away, and then proceeds to remove the gallows. In
doing so he by accident hits Punch on the nose._
_Punch._ Mind what you are about! (for Punch is game, yer know, right
through to the back-bone.)
_Clown._ Make haste, Punch, here’s somebody a-coming! (They hustle his
legs and feet in; but they can’t get his head in, the undertaker not
having made the coffin large enough.)
_Punch._ We’d better double him up, place the pall on, and take the man
to the brave,--not the grave, but the brave: cos he’s been a brave man
in his time may be.--Sings the song of ‘Bobbing around,’ while with the
coffin he bobs Joey on the head, and exaunt.
_Re-enter_ PUNCH.
_Punch._ That was a jolly lark, wasn’t it? Sings,--
“I’d be a butterfly, born in a bower,
Making apple-dumplings without any flour.”
All this wit must have been born in me, or nearly so; but I got a good
lot of it from Porsini and Pike--and gleanings, you know.
[_Punch disappears and re-enters with bell._
_Punch._ This is my pianner-sixty: it plays fifty tunes all at one time.
[_Goes to the landlord of the public-house painted on the side-scene,
or cottage, represented as a tavern or hotel. The children of the
publican are all a-bed. Punch plays up a tune and solicits for money._
_Landlord wakes up in a passion through the terrible noise; pokes his
head out of window and tells him to go away._
(There’s a little window, and a little door to this side-scene.) If
they was to play it all through, as you’re a writing, it ’ud open
Drury-lane Theatre.
_Punch._ Go away? Yes, play away! Oh, you means, O’er the hills and
far away. (He misunderstands him, wilfully, the hypocrite.) [_Punch
keeps on ringing his bell violently. Publican, in a violent passion,
opens the door, and pushes him away, saying, “Be off with you!”_]
_Punch._ I will not. (_Hits him over the head with the bell._) You’re
no judge of music. (_Plays away._)
Publican exaunts to fetch cudgel to pay him out. Punch no sooner sees
cudgel than he exaunts, taking his musical instrument with him. It’s
far superior to anything of the kind you did ever see, except ‘seldom.’
You know it’s silver, and that’s what we says ‘seldom;’ silver, you
know, is ‘seldom,’ because it’s seldom you sees it.
Publican comes out of his house with his cudgel to catch old Punch on
the grand hop. Must have a little comic.
Punch returns again with his bell, while publican is hiding secretly
for to catch him. Publican pretends, as he stands in a corner, to be
fast asleep, but keeps his eyes wide awake all the while, and says, ‘If
he comes up here, I’ll be one upon his tibby.’
Punch comes out from behind the opposite side, and rings his bell
violently. Publican makes a blow at him with his cudgel, and misses,
saying, “How dare you intrude upon my premises with that nasty, noisy
bell?”
Punch, while publican is watching at this side-scene, appears over
at the other, with a hartful dodge, and again rings his bell loudly,
and again the publican misses him; and while publican is watching at
this side-scene, Punch re-enters, and draws up to him very slowly, and
restes his pianner-sixty on the board, while he slowly advances to him,
and gives him a whack on the head with his fist. Punch then disappears,
leaving his bell behind, and the landlord in pursession of his music.
_Landlord_ (_collaring the bell_). Smuggings! pursession is nine points
of the law! So this bell is mine, (_guarding over it with a stick_).
Smuggings! this is mine, and when he comes up to take this bell away, I
shall have him. Smuggings! it’s mine.
Punch re-enters very slowly behind the publican as he is watching the
bell, and snatching up the bell, cries out, ‘That’s mine,’ and exaunts
with it.
_Publican._ Dear me! never mind; I look after him; I shall catch him
some day or other. (_Hits his nose up against the post as he is going
away._) (That’s comic.) Oh, my nose! never mind, I’ll have him again
some time.
[_Excite_ PUBLICAN.
CLOWN _re-enters_ with PUNCH.
_Clown._ Oh, Punch, how are you?
_Punch._ I’m very glad to see you. Oh, Joey, my friend, how do you do?
_Clown._ Here, Punch, are you a mind for a lark? (_Peeping in at the
cottage window, represented as a public-house._) Are you hungry, Punch?
would you like something to eat?
_Punch._ Yes.
_Clown._ What would you like?
_Punch._ Not peculiar.
(Not particular, he means, you know; that’s a slip word.)
_Clown._ I’ll go up into the landlord, and see if he’s got anything to
eat. (_Exaunt into cottage, and poking his head of the window._) Here,
Punch; here’s the landlord fast asleep in the kitchen cellar; here’s a
lot of sausages hanging up here.
(Joey’s a-thieving; don’t you see, he’s a robbing the landlord now?)
Would you like some for supper, eh, Punch?
_Punch._ Yes, to be sure.
_Clown._ Don’t make a noise; you’ll wake the landlord.
_Punch_ (_whispering as loud as he can bawl through the window_). Hand
’em out here. (_Punch pulls them out of the window._)
_Clown._ What are we to fry them in? I’ll go and see if I can find a
fryingpan.
[_Exaunt from window, and re-appears with fryingpan, which he hands
out of window for Punch to cook sausages in, and then disappears for a
moment; after which he returns, and says, with his head out of window,
‘Would you like something hot, Punch?’_
_Punch._ Yes, to be sure.
(Punch is up to everything. He’s a helping him to rob the publican.
One’s as much in the mud as the other is in the mire.)
_Clown._ (_Thrusting red-hot poker out of window._) Here, lay
hold--Here’s a lark--Make haste--Here’s the landlord a coming. (_Rubs
Punch with it over the nose._)
_Punch._ Oh my nose!--that is a hot ’un.
[_Takes poker._
_Clown._ (_Re-enters, and calls in at window._) Landlord, here’s a
fellow stole your sausages and fryingpan. (_Wakes up Landlord and
exaunts._)
_Landlord._ (_Appears at window._) Here’s somebody been in my house and
axually stole my sausages, fryingpan, and red-hot poker!
(Clown exaunts when he has blamed it all to Punch. Joey stole ’em, and
Punch took ’em, and the receiver is always worse than the thief, for if
they was never no receivers there wouldn’t never be no thieves.)
_Landlord._ Seizing the sausages in Punch’s hand, says, How did you get
these here?
_Punch._ Joey stole ’em, and I took ’em.
_Landlord._ Then you’re both jolly thieves, and I must have my
property. A scuffle ensues. Punch hollars out, Joey! Joey! Here’s the
landlord a stealing the sausages!
(So you see Punch wants to make the landlord a thief so as to exempt
himself. He’s a hypocrite there again, you see again--all through the
piece he’s the master-piece. Oh a most clever man is Punch, and such an
hypocrite.)
(Punch, seizing the fryingpan, which has been on the play-board, knocks
it on the publican’s head; when, there being a false bottom to it, the
head goes through it, and the sausages gets about the Publican’s neck,
and Punch pulls at the pan and the sausages with veheminence, till the
landlord is exhausted, and exaunts with his own property back again;
so there is no harm done, only merely for the lark to return to those
people what belongs to ’em--What you take away from a person always
give to them again.)
_Re-enter_ CLOWN.
_Clown._ Well, Mr. Punch, I shall wish you a pleasant good morning.
_Punch._ [_Hits him with his cudgel._] Good morning to you, Joey.
_Exaunt_ JOEY.
Punch sits down by the side of the poker, and Scaramouch appears
without a head.
Punch looks, and beholds, and he’s frightened, and exaunts with the
poker.
Scaramouch does a comic dance, with his long neck shooting up and down
with the actions of his body, after which he exaunts.
Punch re-enters again with the poker, and places it beside of him, and
takes his cudgel in his hand for protection, while he is singing the
National Anthem of “God save the Queen and all the Royal Family.”
Satan then appears as a dream (and it is all a dream after all), and
dressed up as the Roossian Bear (leave Politics alone as much as you
can, for Punch belongs to nobody).
Punch has a dreadful struggle with Satan, who seizes the red-hot poker
and wants to take Punch away, for all his past misdeeds, and frolic and
fun, to the bottomless pit.
By struggling with Satan, Punch overpowers him, and he drops the poker,
and Punch kills him with his cudgel, and shouts “Bravo! Hooray! Satan
is dead,” he cries (we must have a good conclusion): “we can now all
do as we like!”--(That’s the moral, you see.) “Good-by, Ladies and
Gentlemen: this is the whole of the original performance of Mr. Punch:
and I remain still your most obedient and most humble servant to
command. Good-by, good-by, good-by. God bless you all. I return you my
most sincere thanks for your patronage and support, and I hope you’ll
come out handsome with your gold and silver.”
There is one Punch in France, but far different to the English Punch;
they exhibiting their figures in a different way by performing them
with sticks, the same as Scaramouch is done. They has a performing
Punch sitivated at the Boulevards, in Paris, where he has a certain
piece of ground allotted for him, with seats attached, being his own
freehold property; the passers-by, if they wish to see the performance,
they take their seat with the juveniles, sits down, and he performs
to them for what they think proper to give him. I never was over in
France, but I’ve heard talk of him a deal from foreigners who has
given us inflammation about it, vich they was so kind to do. They shows
the difference between English and French you know.