Dionysius
Swivel_, a pint of ale, and Punch's theatre!
"Tragedy," saith the Aristotelian recipe for cooking up a serious drama,
"should have the probable, the marvellous, and the pathetic." In the
_tableau_ thus presented, the audience beheld the three conditions
strictly complied with all at once. "It was highly probable," as _Mr.
Swivel_ observed to the source of pipes, 'bacca, and malt--in other words,
to the landlady he was addressing--that his master, the showman, was
unable to pay the score he had run up; it was marvellous that the
proprietor of so popular a puppet as "Punch" should not have even the
price of a pint of ale in his treasury; lastly, that circumstance was
deeply pathetic; for what so heart-rending as the exhibition of fallen
greatness, of broken-down prosperity, of affluence regularly stumped and
hard-up! The fact is, that "Punch," his theatre, and _corps dramatique_,
are in pawn for eight-and-ninepence!
In the midst of this distress there appears a young gentleman, giving vent
to passionate exclamations, while furiously buttoning up a tight surtout.
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