TURK, THE FIRST VILLAIN.
Of all the male members of the West family, Turk was the one I liked
best. Our intimacy soon ripened into friendship, and he made me the
confidant of his woes, and as I was a good listener, we got on
admirably together. It seemed that he had never had 'a chance,' as he
termed it, and that he had been condemned by fate to act a line of
business which he declared was distasteful to him--although I must
confess that my after experience of him convinced me that it was
exactly suited to him, and he to it--and in theatres where the
intellectual discernment of the audiences was proverbially of a low
standard.
'Perhaps you will tell me,' he said to me, in one of our private
conferences, 'what there is in my appearance that I should have been
selected to play the first villain almost from my birth--from my
birth, sir, Chris, my boy. Do I look like a murderer? Do I look like a
man who had passed through a career of the deepest-dyed ruffianism,
and was eager to go on with it? Speak your mind--it won't hurt me; I'm
used to criticism, and I know what value to place upon it.'
Turk was really a slight-made man, and as I had not seen him act at
the time of these utterances, I could not understand his sister's
praises of him as the best murderer to slow music that she had ever
seen. His appearance in private life was, to say the best of it,
insignificant, and as utterly opposed to that of a deeply-dyed ruffian
as can well be imagined. The only likeness to the description Josey
West had given of him that I could see was his 'glare,' and he
certainly did roll his eyes as he spoke, with an effect which was
nothing less than tremendous. I mentioned to him that I had heard the
greatest praises of his acting, and that he played the villain's part
to the life.
'And what does that prove?' he asked, with an oratorical flourish.
'Does it prove that I am fit for nothing better, or that I am a
conscientious actor? When I have a part to play, I play it; I don't
play Turk West every night. See me play the Thug, and I defy you to
recognise me; see me as the First Murderer in _Macbeth_, and I defy
you to recognise the Thug. When I first played the Thug, my own mother
didn't know me; "That's something like acting," she said; and she
ought to have known, rest her soul! for she played a baby in arms
before she was out of long clothes, and spoke lines on the stage when
she was three years old. Why, sir, my struggle with old Martin, in
_The Will and the Way_, was said to be the most realistic thing ever
seen on the stage--and do I look as if I would murder a man? It was
art, sir, pure art. I am a conscientious actor--a conscientious actor,
sir, Chris, my boy--and what I have to play, I play. Give me a strong
leading part in a good piece, in a good theatre in the West-end--in
the West-end, sir, Chris, my boy, not in this heaven-forsaken
quarter--and then see what I can do! Why, sir, there are men occupying
leading positions in our best theatres who can't hold a candle to Turk
West--I'm not a vain man, and I say they can't hold a candle to Turk
West! There are men--whose names I'll not mention, for I'm not envious
and I only speak in the interests of art--men on the boards on the
other side of Temple Bar--where I've never been seen--who are drawing
large screws, and who have as much idea of acting as a barn-door fowl.
What do they play? They play _themselves_, never mind what characters
they represent. Dress doesn't make a character--it's the voice, and
the manner, and the bearing. Why, look at----never mind; I said I
wouldn't mention names. Directly he comes on the stage--whether he
plays a young man or a middle-aged man or an old man, a man of
this century or a man of the last century, or farther back if you
please--everybody says, "Ah, there's old So-and-so!" And he uses the
same action and the same leer and the same walk, as if the hundreds of
characters he has played in his time were written to represent _him_,
not as if, having taken to the stage, it was his duty to represent
_them_. Call that acting! It's death and destruction to art, that's
what it is. And the public stand it--stand it, sir, Chris, my
boy--being led by the nose, as asses are, by critics who have reasons
of their own for not putting their thumbs down on such incompetency.
That's the word, sir, Chris, my boy, that's the word--incompetency.
But wait-till I come out; wait till an author that I have in my eye--
yes, sir, I have him; I know him, and he believes in me, and I believe
in him; we fight a common cause--wait till he has finished the piece
he is writing for me, a piece representing two passions; one is not
enough for Turk West. When that piece is performed at one of the
West-end theatres, with Turk West in the leading character, you may
mark a new era in the history of the stage. But mum, Chris, my boy,
mum! Not a word of this to any of my relations.'
My acquiescent rejoinders were very pleasing to him, and he expressed
a high opinion of my judgment.
'You shall come and see me play to-morrow night,' he said, 'at the
Royal Columbia. I'm engaged there for the heavy business. Can you get
away from work at half-past five o'clock? I'll come for you, if you
like, and we'll walk together to the shop' (thus irreverently
designating the Temple of Thespis).
I said I thought I could get away, and he promised to call for me.
'You will see, sir, Chris, my boy, the most villainous and
incomprehensible blood-and-thunder melodrama that ever was presented
on the stage--it is called _The Knight of the Sable Plume, or The
Bloodstained Banner_. Isn't the very title enough to drive intelligent
persons from the doors? But, sir, Chris, my boy, we play to a twopenny
gallery, and the twopenny gallery will have blood for its money, and
plenty of it. _The Bloodstained Banner_ is a vile hash put together
for a "star"--an arrant impostor, sir--who plays the leading part.
I'll say nothing of him--you shall see and judge for yourself. I play
Plantagenet the Ruthless; I don't slur my part because it's
impossible, absurd, and ridiculous--you'll find no shirking in Turk
West; he knows what duty is, and he does it. If I have lines given me
to speak in which there isn't an atom of sense, it isn't my fault; I
speak them because I'm paid to speak them, and I do my best to
illuminate--that's the word, sir, Chris, my boy--to illuminate a
character which is an insult to my intelligence. Necessity knows no
law, and if I'm compelled to knuckle-down to fate to-day, I live in
hopes that the sun will shine to-morrow.'
I said that I sincerely hoped the sun would shine to-morrow, and that
it _would_ shine brightly for him; and Turk West wrung my hand, and
said that he wished the audiences he had to play to were as
intellectually gifted as I was, adding that then there would be hope
for the drama.
I obtained permission to leave on the following evening at the time
mentioned by Turk, who was as good as his word in coming for me, and
we walked together to the Royal Columbia Theatre.
'Prepare yourself, my boy,' he said, in the tone of one who was about
to initiate a novice in solemn mysteries; 'I am going to take you
behind the scenes.'
I was duly impressed by the great privilege in store for me, and I
walked by the side of Turk West, glorified in a measure by his
importance. The theatre was not yet open, and a large number of
persons was waiting for admittance, some of whom, as regular
frequenters, recognised Turk and pointed him out to their companions,
who regarded him with looks of awe and wonder; others, unaware of the
great presence, were kicking vigorously at the doors. After lingering
a little and looking about him with an unconscious air (really, I now
believe, to enjoy the small tribute of fame which was descending upon
him; but I did not suspect this at the time), Turk preceded me down an
unobtrusive narrow passage, the existence of which could have been
known only to the initiated. This led to the stage-door, which to my
astonishment was the meanest, shabbiest, and most battered door within
my experience. We plunged at once into the dark recesses of the
theatre; and after bumping my head very severely against jutting
beams, and nearly breaking my neck by falling up and down unexpected
steps, which were nothing more nor less than traps for the unwary, I
found myself in a long barn-like room, full of draughts (which latter
feature, indeed, seems to be the chronic complaint of all theatres,
before and behind the curtain), and with a very low ceiling, which
Turk informed me was the principal dressing-room for the gentlemen of
the company. Therein were congregated seven or eight individuals,
making-up for the first piece; some were rubbing themselves dry with
dirty towels, some were dressing, some undressing, some painting their
faces. One, whom I afterwards discovered was the low-comedy man, was
sticking pieces of pluffy wool upon his nose and cheeks, and dabbing
them with rouge, with which he was also painting his eyebrows, so that
they might match his close-cropped, carroty-haired wig. Turk was
familiarly and merrily greeted by all these brothers-in-arms, who all
addressed him as 'Cully;' and as he returned the compliment and
'cullied' them, I presumed it was a family name which they all
enjoyed. Turk proceeded at once to disrobe himself, and I, filled with
wonder at the mysteries of which I was, for the first time, a
privileged observer, turned my attention to the other members of the
company. The room adjoining was also occupied, by the ladies of the
company, to judge from their voices; they were in the merriest of
spirits, and a smart rattle of jokes and saucy sayings passed from one
room to another. Turk was evidently a favourite with the ladies, who
called out 'Turk, my dear' this, and 'Turk, my dear' that, he
returning their 'dears' with 'darlings,' as became a man of gallantry.
When, after the lapse of a few minutes, I looked towards the place
where Turk was, I discovered in his stead an imposing individual with
a pair of magnificent moustaches on his lips, and such a development
of calf to his legs as I certainly never should have given Turk credit
for without ocular proof. I gazed at him in doubt as to whether it
really was Turk I saw before me, and his voice presently convinced me
that it was Turk, and no other. Over his herculean calves he drew a
pair of doubtfully-white cotton tights, and over these a pair of
yellow-satin breeches, rather the worse for wear; around his waist (no
longer slim, but bulky, as became the 'heavy man') he drew a flaming
red-silk sash, with enormous fringes, and a broad black belt, in which
were ominously displayed two great knives and three great pistols.
Then came a ballet shirt which had seen better days (or nights), then
a blue-velvet jacket, with slashed sleeves and large brass buttons,
and he completed his attire by throwing carelessly upon his head--
which was framed in a wig of black ringlets--a peaked black hat, with
a stained red feather drooping over (I feel that I ought to say o'er')
his brow.
'This is the regulation kind of thing, Chris,' he said to me in a low
voice--'this is the stuff that draws the twopenny gallery.'
And he turned, with much affability, and accepted a pewter-pot offered
to him by a brother with a 'Here, Cully!' and drank a deep draught.
Then he took me into the passage, and asked some person in authority
to pass me into the theatre. The people were pouring in at all the
entrances, and in a short time the house was completely filled. They
were fully bent upon enjoying themselves, and began to kick and
applaud directly they were seated. When the lights were turned up and
a bright blaze broke upon the living sea of faces, there was a roar of
delight; and as the musicians straggled into the orchestra, they were
greeted with applause and exclamations of familiarity, which fell upon
ears supremely indifferent. I was placed in a good position, where I
had a capital view of the stage, and having purchased a playbill, I
began to study it. The programme was an imposing one, and the
occupants of the twopenny gallery could certainly not complain that
they did not have enough for their money. First, there was the
romantic melodrama of _The Knight of the Sable Plume_, in which that
distinguished actor, Mr. Horace Saint Herbert Fitzherbert (pronounced
by the entire press to be superior to the elder Kean, and to surpass
Garrick), would sustain the principal character. To be followed by the
thrilling drama of _The Lonely Murder at the Wayside Inn_. After
which, a comic song by Sam Jacobs, entitled the 'Jolly Drunken
Cobbler,' and the clog hornpipe, by Mr. Dicksey. The whole to conclude
with the stirring domestic drama of _The Trials and Vicissitudes of a
Servant-Girl_; winding up with a grand allegorical tableau in coloured
fires. The appetite that could have found fault with the quantity must
surely have been unappeasable. In due time the music ceases, a bell
rings, there is a moment's breathless expectation in the house, and
the curtain rises on _The Knight of the Sable Plume_. Scene the first:
A wood. In the distance, the battlemented castle of Plantagenet the
Ruthless. (So says the programme, but I cannot see the battlemented
castle, although I strain my eyes to discern it, being interested in
it as the family residence of my friend Turk.) Enter two ruffians in
leather jerkins and buff gloves. Times are very bad with them. They
want gold, they want blood, and--ahr! they want revenge (with a
redundancy of _r_'s). They roll their eyes, they gnash their teeth.
Yonder is the castle of Plantagenet. There sits the lordly tyrant who
grinds his vassals to the dust. Shall he be allowed to go on in his
ruthless course unchecked? No! Hark! a thousand echoes reiterate the
declaration. (I fancy the echoes.) No no! no! They kneel, and swear
revenge in dumb show. Who comes here? As they live, it is the lovely
Edith, the heiress to those baronial halls. The Fates are propitious.
They'll tear her from the domestic hearth, and bear her senseless form
to mountains wild. Exit ruffians elaborately. Enter Edith pensively.
She is pretty, and she receives a round of applause from all parts of
the house. She bows, and tells the audience that she has just
dismounted from her snow-white palfrey outside. This accounts for her
coming in without a hat, and with her hair hanging down her back over
a white-muslin frock. The sparkling foliage of the trees tempted her
to stroll along the mossy sward. She sighs. Who is the stranger she
met nine days ago upon this very spot? She did not speak to him, she
did not see his face, but the beating of her heart, the clouds athwart
the sky, the dew upon the grass, the whisper of the breeze, the
beauteous birds that warble delicious notes to scented flowers, all,
all whisper to her that she loves him. Ah, yes, she loves him! Could
she but see once more his manly form, she'd die content. Cue to the
musicians, with whose assistance Edith sings a plaintive song
expressive of her wish To quit the sordid world, And with her love be
whirled To other lands. On sorrow bent (she sings), I'd die content If
he were by my side. Oh, take me, love, To realms above, And let me be
thy bride. The ruffians enter at the back of the stage, and roam about
with stealthy steps. They draw their knives, and breathe upon them.
Expectation is in every eye. The ruffians advance. The high-born
maiden continues her song. The ruffians retreat. The high-born
concludes her song with a tra-la-la. The ruffians, having just made up
their minds at that point, advance again, with a quick sliding
movement. Seize her! Oh, spare me, spare me she cries. Spare you,
daughter of Plantagenet the Ruthless! spare you! Never! Did thy gory
sire spare my white-haired parent when, with his bloody sword, he
clove him from head to foot, and laid him writhing in the dust? Spare
you! Not if lightnings flashed and thunders rolled, not if all the
powers of earth and air interpose their forms protecting, shall you be
spared! Revenge! The music is worked up terrifically during the scene.
The ruffians drag the maiden this way and that, evidently undecided as
to which road they shall take to their mountains wild. They seem bent
upon rending her lovely form into small pieces and running off the
opposite sides of the stage with the fragments. Help, oh, help me! she
cries. A sudden tumult is heard without. Make way there, make way! is
heard, at least two yards from the spot. She shrieks more loudly. I
hear his lovèd step without! she cries. And the next moment a figure
clad in armour rushes in, and with one blow lays the two ruffians dead
upon the stage. His visor is down, and towering in his helmet is a
sable plume. It is he, the Knight of the Sable Plume! He supports
Edith on one arm; he raises the other aloft to the skies, and the
curtain drops upon the picture amidst the admiring plaudits of the
audience. Vociferous cries for Fitz! Fitz! bring that hero to the
front of the curtain, where he gracefully bows, and wipes his brow
languidly with a cambric handkerchief The second act introduces my
friend Turk West, in the character of Plantagenet. I am glad to find
that he is a favourite with the audience, who clap their hands, and
two or three profane ones cry out, 'Bravo, Turk! Go in and win!' I am
not aware whether this is a stimulant to him, but he certainly 'goes
in' with vigour. The scene in which he appears is described as the
grand hall in the castle, and its appointments are two chairs and a
brown wooden table of modern manufacture. Very ruthless and very
fierce indeed does Turk look, and he is accompanied by the pair of
dead ruffians, who now appear as retainers: I recognise them by their
buff boots. It is in vain that I endeavour to unravel the plot; the
threads slip from me directly I attempt to gather them together. From
a lengthy soliloquy indulged in by Plantagenet, I learn that he is not
the rightful owner of the battlemented castle. Seventeen years ago he
killed a noble prince in cold blood (which popular phrase cannot be a
correct one), and murdered his beautiful child, the last, last scion
of a noble race. (Here Turk grows magnificent, and 'goes in' with a
will.) Oh, agony! He beholds once more their mangled corpses, he sees
the death-sweat br-reaking on their brows! The demon of remorse is
tearing at his vitals. Oh, would he could recall the past, and restore
the two wooden chairs and the table to their rightful owner! During
the applause that follows, Turk winks at me, and I am delighted. The
low-comedy man and a waiting-maid in short petticoats and wearing an
embroidered apron, as was the fashion with waiting-maids in the days
of chivalry, play important comic parts in the piece, and send the
audience into convulsions of laughter. But the plot has quite baffled
me, and I have given up all hope of unravelling it. The Knight of the
Sable Plume has been thrown into prison by Plantagenet, after a
desperate fight with eight retainers (in slippers), and is released by
the hand of the lovely Edith, to whom he swears eternal fealty. The
last scene is the same as the first--a wood, with the (invisible)
battlemented castle in the distance. Plantagenet the Ruthless enters.
He is mad with rage. His prisoner has escaped. He gnashes his teeth.
He'll search the wide world through but he will find him. Usurper! ye
search not long. Behold him here! He enters, the Knight of the Sable
Plume. At length we stand front to front! Back to thy teeth thy lying
words! Villain! Defend thyself! They fight to music. One, two, up;
one, two, down; one, two, three, four, sideways. They turn round, and
when they are face to face, they clash their swords terrifically. They
lock their arms together, and fight that way. The gallant knight is
getting the worst of it. He is forced first upon one knee, then upon
the other. He fights round the stage in this position. By a herculean
effort he gains his feet. The swords flash fire. Ah, the usurper
yields! He stumbles. He lies prostrate on the ground. Over him glares
the knight. Recreant, beg thy miserable life! Never! Die, then,
remorseless tyrant! With a piercing shriek Edith rushes in, and cries,
Spare him, oh, spare him; he is my father! The Knight of the Sable
Plume is softened; his sword drops from his grasp. He kneels, and
supports the head of the Ruthless. It is too late; Death has marked me
for his own, says Turk. The knight raises his visor. Ah! what is that
scar upon thy brow? cries Turk. Avenging heaven! it is _his_ child.
These possessions are thine. Take them. Take my daughter. Her love
will compensate for her father's hate. He joins their hands, and
turning up the whites of his eyes (which elicits from the gallery
cries of 'Bravo, Turk!') and saying, 'I die hap-pappy!' proceeds to do
so in the most approved corkscrew style. Thus ended _The Knight of the
Sable Plume_, by far the most incomprehensible piece of romance it had
been my good fortune to witness. Mr. Horace Saint Herbert Fitzherbert
was called before the curtain at the end of the drama, and appeared;
there were calls also for Turk, but he did not appear. He gloomily
informed me, when the performance was over, that Fitzherbert was on a
'starring' engagement, and that it was in the agreement that in his
own pieces nobody should be allowed to appear before the curtain but
himself. On reference to the playbill, I found that in _The Lonely
Murder at the Wayside Inn_ Turk was the murderer, and I am afraid to
say how many times he deserved to be hanged for the dreadful crimes he
performed in _The Trials and Vicissitudes of a Servant-Girl_. In the
last piece the allegorical tableau in coloured fires may have conveyed
a good moral, but the smell was suggestive of the lower regions, where
good morals are not fashionable.
Following out the instructions given to me by Turk, I made my way,
when the curtain fell for the last time, to the dressing-room at the
back of the stage, and whispered my praises of my friend's acting.
Before we went home, he and a number of his professional brethren
'looked in' at a neighbouring bar, where pewter pots were freely
handed about. There was no lack of animated conversation, and the
subject of course was the drama. One man, who had played a small
character in _The Knight of the Sable Plume_, and played it well, was
holding forth to two or three unprofessional friends on the peculiar
hardship of his case. As he had not played in the last piece, I
inferred from his condition that he had been regaling himself at the
bar for some time before we entered. He was an elderly man, and Turk
whispered to me that he had once been leading man in the theatre, but
that he had come down in the world. Those who addressed him by name
called him Mac.
'Ah, Turk, my boy,' he said, giving Turk a left-handed grasp; his
right hand held his glass of whisky-toddy--'ah, my sons, come in to
drink? That's right. Drown dull care.'
'You've tried to do that for a pretty considerable time, Mac,' said
Turk good-humouredly. 'Take a pull at the pewter, Chris.'
'I have, my boy, I have,' returned Mac; I'm an old stager now, but,
dammee! there's life in the old boy yet. I'll play Claude Melnotte
with the youngest of you. I'm ready to commence all over again. Show
me a more juvenile man than I am on the boards, and dammee! I'll stand
glasses round I will--and pay for them if I can borrow the money!'
A volley of laughter greeted this sally, in which Mac joined most
heartily.
'Drown dull care!' he continued. 'I've tried to do it for a
pretty considerable time, as Turk says--dammee, my sons! I've
it all my life, and I'd advise you to do the same. Care killed a
cat, so beware. Before you came in, my sons, I was speaking to these
gentlemen'--indicating his unprofessional friends--'who kindly asked
me to take a glass with them--thank you, I don't mind; my glass _is_
empty; another whisky-toddy--The cry is still they come! eh, my
sons?--I was speaking to these gentlemen, whose names I have not the
pleasure of knowing, but who take an interest in the profession. I was
speaking to them of myself, in connection with the noble art. I was
saying that I act for my bread----'
'And sack,' interrupted a member of the company. 'And sack. Mac.'
'Hang it, no, my son!' exclaimed the old actor, with a capital mixture
of humour and dignity. 'I act for my bread; I let my friends pay for
the sack. I may, or I may not, be an ornament to my profession; that
is a matter of public opinion and public taste; but whether I am or am
not, I am not ashamed to say I act for my bread. I was speaking to
these gentlemen also--your healths, gentlemen--of the decadence of the
drama. In the halcyon days of youth, in the days of the great Kemble
(I made him my model; I trust I do not tarnish his fair fame), the
drama was worth something. But now, when a fellow like this
Fitzherbert--a man who has been pitchforked, so to speak, into the
profession--comes in and takes all the fat of the piece, and when he
is puffed and posted and advertised into a successful engagement, and
when every other worthy member of the company is pushed into a corner,
and compelled, so to speak, to hold a variety of lighted candies to
show off his spurious brightness, it's an infernal hard thing to each
of us as individuals, and a degradation to the drama as an art.'
'Bravo, Mac!' said one and another, some in sincerity, some to humour
the old actor.
'You are certainly right, sir,' said one of the strangers, speaking
with the deference due to so eminent an authority. Your glass is
empty; will you fill again?'
'Ay, till the crack of doom,' was the ready reply. 'Right, sir! of
course I'm right.'
'But,' said another of the strangers, not quite so deferential as the
former speaker, some one must play second fiddle.'
'Second fiddle, sir! Yes, I admit it, sir. Some one _must_ play second
fiddle--and third fiddle too, if you like. But let the man who plays
second fiddle _be_ a second fiddle, and not a first fiddle.'
'Who is to blame for all this?' asked the deferential stranger.
'Who's to blame, sir! The public, sir--the public. But what
consolation is that to me? I must live, sir, I suppose. I must feed my
family, or answer for it to the beak. Here am I, who will place my
Macbeth in comparison with any man's--who can play Hamlet, Lear,
Othello, Brutus, in a masterly manner--I don't say it _of_ myself; it
has been said of me--here am I compelled to knuckle-under to a man
young enough to be my son, and with not a tenth part of my brains or
experience. And what's the consequence? I haven't had a call for six
months, while he gets called on three times a night. Why, sir, I
remember the time when a discriminating audience called me on six
times in one piece! I've had a dozen bouquets thrown to me in one
night! And now, sir, these things are forgotten, and old Mac is
shelved, sir, shelved!'
'The public ought to be ashamed of themselves,' said the deferential
stranger.
But the public's not all to blame.. It's the managers, who allow
themselves to be led, like tame sheep, into the trap; they haven't the
moral courage to stand up against it. And what's a man, or a manager,
without moral courage? I wouldn't mind it so much, but what's the
consequence? A star is engaged upon shares, at an enormous screw, and
to make this up, all _our_ screws are reduced. That's where it comes
hard. I pledge you my dramatic word, my screw isn't so much by
seven-and-sixpence a week as it was six months ago. Who gets my
seven-and-six? Why, who but the star? And my poor children must starve
and perish, or go on the parish, if they hadn't a self-denying parent,
who would pawn his shirt before they should come to want. I'll take
another glass of whisky-toddy--my last, sir, my last to-night. Old Mac
knows when he's had enough. Turk, my son, a word in your ear.'
Turk went aside with him, and I heard the jingling of coin.
'He's a rum old fellow,' said Turk to me, as we walked home; 'a good
actor too, and might have got on well if he hadn't been so much
engaged all his life in drowning care.'
'You gave him some money?' I said.
'Lent it to him, Chris; only fourpence halfpenny. The old fellow never
borrows even money; it's always an exact sum for an exact purpose that
he wants--fourteenpence, or eightpence halfpenny, or sevenpence, or
some other odd amount. He was never known to borrow a shilling or a
half-crown. There's a good deal of truth in what he says, Chris.'
'I am sorry for his wife and children,' I said.
'The best of it is,' replied Turk, laughing, 'that the old fellow has
only two sons, and the youngest is thirty-four years of age, and in a
very good way. But it pleases old Mac to talk like that, and he has
talked like it so long, that I've no doubt he really believes that he
_has_ a destitute family somewhere, who would starve if he couldn't
borrow his fourpence-halfpennies and his sevenpences now and then.
It's one of the best things I know.'
Altogether this night's entertainment was a most enjoyable one to me,
and gave me much food for reflection.