(_You should have an ordinary wooden elbow-chair and a print
wrapper within easy reach. Come on crouching, with
an air of tigerish anticipation._)
'Tis he! Can I mistake the clustered curls
Upon his hated hyacinthine head?
Have they not wiled from me the fickle heart
Of perjured BANDOLINA! There, he stands
Before my window, where a winsome form,
Rotating slow with measured self-display,
Has caught his errant eye. Now, demi-siren,
[_Hands extended in passionate invocation._
Make languorous those lustrous crystal orbs!
Wreathe, waxen arms, and lure him in, to me!
So--once again!--he falters--he is Mine!
[_Savage exultation, with eyebrows._
Let me be calm.
(_Self-restraint, indicated by violent heaving of
shirt-front._)
Good morning, Sir, to you.
I pray you--
(_With a forced sickly smile_)
--step within, and seat yourself.
I will attend you in a moment.
(_Hold open imaginary door; then resume soliloquy
in fierce undertone._)
... Trapped!
He knows me not.
(_With dark suspicion, which is easily conveyed by half
closing eyes and pressing knuckle of bent forefinger
against lower lip._)
Unless I be deceived,
No hazard freak of hooded Fortune's urn,
[_A nasty line for the "h"-less._
But BANDOLINA'S dainty insolence
Decreed this visit ... Ha! my victim calls!
I come anon. Sir
(_fawningly, with a side-glance of withering hate at your
chair._)
Patience, peevish worm!
Are you in such a hurry, then, to writhe?
[_Fierce aside._ (_Here you draw the chair forward, and,
placing yourself behind it, speak the following lines with easy
fluency, accompanied by such pantomime as may suggest itself
to you._)
I crave your pardon for my tardiness,--
Allow me to dispose these lendings--thus:
[_Here you shake out the wrapper._
This band above the elbows--tighter--so.
I do assure you, Sir, this is no gag--
'Tis but a poor contrivance of mine own
To guard the mouth against th' encroaching sud.
Refreshing, Sir, indeed, this change of weather!
But one more knot.... and now
(_here you stride to a position in front of the chair, which
you survey with folded arms, and a mocking smile_)
--my feigning's done!
Writhe as you will, I have you at my mercy.
BALDWIN MCASSIR, have we met at last?
[_In a terrible voice._
You know me not?--then quail, for I am he
By you bereft of BANDOLINA'S love!
Fear not that I would stoop to seek your life--
My vengeance shall be sated on your hair,
And that is doomed to perish past recall!
Cast up your eyes to yonder whirling wheel:
[_Point to ceiling with air of command._
Then on this brush--'tis set with bristling wires
(Some frivoller termed it my _Cheveux de Frizz_),
Which, with revolving teeth, shall shortly rake
Those curls by BANDOLINA oft caressed,
[_With a cold sneer._
You like the prospect? I have fluids here--
"Elixirs to evolve the latent hair,"
With others, christened (in some franker mood)
"Depilatory Agents,"--scarce less potent:
Upon your helpless head I'll pour them _all_!
(_Arm raised--savage and threatening aspect._)
Nay, smile not thus defiance through your gag--
I swear to lay that haughty crest so low,
That never shall it soar in pride again!
Enough of words--to action!... Still that smile--
So bitter, yet so calm--it maddens me,
I'll stay my hand no longer!--
(_violent plunge with right arm--after which you recoil and
seem to gaze aghast at some object you are holding_)
--juggling fiend!
Was _this_ the secret of your dauntless port?
And could my practised eye be so deceived?
(_In a tone of lofty and dignified resignation._)
Yet, seeing I am thus forestalled by Fate,
I do renounce my purpose--since I must:
Take back your wig, MCASSIR, go in peace.
[_Bitter scorn._
Stay--while, in token that my heart is changed,
I coax it into comeliness anew.
Permit me to unloose you--you are free,
And owe me but a trifle--eighteenpence,
[_Mournfully._
Pay at the counter as you pass without.
(_Here you are supposed to watch your rival's exit with a gloomy
scowl._)
Thus ends my vengeance as some idle dream,
Yet no--'tis but deferred, with interest!
(_You conclude with a bitter apostrophe to your intended
victim._)
Back to your BANDOLINA, plumaged daw!
Be bald, but resolute, in your disguise,
Till haply on her honeymoon she learns
How you have drawn her with that single hair,
And I may be avenged! Till then, adieu!
(_Stalk gloomily off, and allow somebody else to remove
the chair._)
* * * * *
ON THE STUMP, IN TWO SENSES.--So the Parliamentary Session _and_ the
Cricket Season are over at last, and contemporaneously. The latter has
been productive of long scores and high averages, the former of little
but long speeches and low language. And now _two_ teams of British
Cricketers are outward bound by the _Iberia_, for a holiday campaign in
Australia. Nobody knows exactly how many teams of slogging politicians
are also going for _their_ holiday campaign--"on the stump," all over
the Kingdom. _Mr. Punch_ wishes the two lots of willow-wielders, led
respectively by Mr. VERNON and ARTHUR SHREWSBURY, a far merrier time and
much better "scores" than he fears will fall to the lot of the
peripatetic Parliamentarians.
* * * * *
THE HOME RULE CURE.--Mrs. M. understands that the only remedy possible
for Irish complaints is Antimony.
* * * * *