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a feedin' his canary bird![ 62] <hr style="width: 85%;" /> <h2>At the Regent Street Tussaud's.</h2> Before the effigy of Dr. Koch, who is represented in the act of examining a test-tube with the expression of bland blamelessness peculiar to Wax Models. Well-informed Visitor. That's Dr. Koch, making his great discovery! Unscientific V. What did he discover? Well-inf. V. Why, the Consumption Bacillus. He's got it in that bottle he's holding up. Unsc. V. And what's the good of it, now he has discovered it? Well-inf. V. Good? Why, it's the thing that causes consumption, you know! Unsc. V. Then it's a pity he didn't leave it alone! Before a Scene representing "The Home Life at Sandringham." First Old Lady (with Catalogue). It says here that "the note the page is handing may have come from Sir Dighton Probyn, the Comptroller of the Royal Household." Fancy that! Second Old Lady. He's brought it in in his fingers. Now that's a thing I never allow in my house. I always tell Sarah to bring all letters, and even circulars, in on a tray! Before a Scene representing the late Fred Archer, on a rather quaint quadruped, on Ascot Racecourse. A Sportsman. H'm—Archer, eh? Shouldn't have backed his mount in that race![ 63] Before "The Library at Hawarden." Gladstonian Enthusiast (to Friend, who, with the perverse ingenuity of patrons of Waxworks, has been endeavouring to identify the Rev. John Wesley among the Cabinet in Downing Street). Oh, never mind all that lot, Betsy; they're only the Gover'ment! Here's dear Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone in this next! See, he's lookin' for something in a drawer of his side-board—ain't that natural? And only look—a lot of people have been leaving Christmas cards on him (a pretty and touching tribute of affection, which is eminently characteristic of a warm-hearted Public). I wish I'd thought o' bringing one with me! Her Friend. So do I. We might send one 'ere by post—but it'll have to be a New Year Card now! A Strict Old Lady (before next group). Who are these two? "Mr. 'Enery Irving, and Miss Ellen Terry in Faust, eh? No—I don't care to stop to see them—that's play-actin', that is—and I don't 'old with it nohow! What are these two parties supposed to be doin' of over here? What—Cardinal Newman and Cardinal Manning at the High Altar at the Oratory, Brompton! Come along, and don't encourage Popery by looking at such figures. I did 'ear as they'd got Mrs. Pearcey and the prambilator somewheres. I should like to see that, now. IN THE CHILDREN'S GALLERY. An Aunt (who finds the excellent Catalogue a mine of useful information). Look, Bobby, dear (reading). "Here we have Constantine's Cat, as seen in the Nights of Straparola, an Italian romancist, whose book was translated into French in the year 1585—" Bobby (disappointed). Oh, then it isn't Puss in Boots! A Genial Grandfather (pausing before Crusoe and Friday). Well, Percy, my boy, you know who that is, at all events—eh? Percy. I suppose it is Stanley—but it's not very like. THE G. G. Stanley!—Why, bless my soul, never heard of Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday? Percy. Oh, I've heard of them, of course—they come in Pantomimes[ 64] —but I like more grown-up sort of books myself, you know. Is this girl asleep She? <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/p64.png" width-obs="348" height-obs="600" alt=""THAT'S PLAY-ACTIN', THAT IS—AND I DON'T 'OLD WITH IT NOHOW!"" title="" /> "THAT'S PLAY-ACTIN', THAT IS—AND I DON'T 'OLD WITH IT NOHOW!"</div> The G. G. No—at least—well, I expect it's The Sleeping Beauty.[ 65] You remember her, of course—all about the ball, and the glass slipper, and her father picking a rose when the hedge grew round the palace, eh? Percy. Ah, you see, Grandfather, you had more time for general reading than we get. (He looks through a practicable cottage window.) Hallo, a Dog and a Cat. Not badly stuffed! The G. G. Why, that must be Old Mother Hubbard. (Quoting from memory.) "Old Mother Hubbard sat in a cupboard, eating a Christmas pie—or a bone was it?" Percy. Don't know. It's not in Selections from British Poetry, which we have to get up for "rep." The Aunt (reading from Catalogue). "The absurd ambulations of this antique person, and the equally absurd antics of her dog, need no recapitulation." Here's Jack the Giant Killer, next. Listen, Bobby, to what it says about him here. (Reads.) "It is clearly the last transmutation of the old British legend told by Geoffrey of Monmouth, of Corineus, the Trojan, the companion of the Trojan Brutus, when he first settled in Britain. But more than this"—I hope you're listening, Bobby?—"more than this, it is quite evident, even to the superficial student of Greek mythology, that many of the main incidents and ornaments are borrowed from the tales of Hesiod and Homer." Think of that, now! [Bobby thinks of it, with depression. The G. G. (before figure of Aladdin's Uncle selling new lamps for old). Here you are, you see! "Ali Baba," got 'em all here, you see. Never read your Arabian Nights, either! Is that the way they bring up boys nowadays! Percy. Well, the fact is, Grandfather, that unless a fellow reads that kind of thing when he's young, he doesn't get a chance afterwards. The Aunt (still quoting). "In the famous work," Bobby, "by which we know Masûdi, he mentions the Persian Hezar Afsane-um-um-um,—nor have commentators failed to notice that the occasion of the book written for the Princess Homai resembles the story told in the Hebrew Bible about Esther, her mother or grandmother, by some Persian Jew two or three centuries B.C." Well, I never knew that before!... This is Sindbad and the Old Man of the Sea—let's see what they say about him.[ 66] (Reads.) "Both the story of Sindbad and the old Basque legend of Tartaro are undoubtedly borrowed from the Odyssey of Homer, whose Iliad and Odyssey were translated into Syriac in the reign of Harun-ur-Rashid." Dear, dear, how interesting, now! and, Bobby, what do you think some one says about Jack and the Beanstalk? He says—"This tale is an allegory of the Teutonic Al-fader, the red hen representing the all-producing sun; the moneybags, the fertilizing rain; and the harp, the winds." Well, I'm sure it seems likely enough, doesn't it? [Bobby suppresses a yawn; Percy's feelings are outraged by receiving a tin trumpet from the Lucky Tub; general move to the scene of the Hampstead Tragedy. BEFORE THE HAMPSTEAD TABLEAUX. Spectators. Dear, dear, there's the dresser, you see, and the window broken and all; it's wonderful how they can do it! And there's poor Mrs. 'Ogg—it's real butter and a real loaf she's cutting, and the poor baby, too!... Here's the actual casts taken after they were murdered. Oh, and there's Mrs. Pearcey wheeling the perambulator—it's the very perambulator! No, not the very one—they've got that at the other place, and the piece of toffee the baby sucked. Have they really! Oh, we must try and go there, too, before the children's holidays are over. And this is all? Well, well, everything very nice, I will say. But a pity they couldn't get <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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