Punch: Punch (83.1882)

December 30, 1882,]

309

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

many people play upon that familyer instrument many hundred

times.

I was glad to hear afterwards that the Queen wasn’t at all
fritened at the butiful Griffin, as Captain Shaw Lefever had
feared, but acshally larfed at it with admiration. The one thort
that filled my manly busom at the Temple Luncheon was, that upon
the whole I suttenly had never seen a finer display of magnificent
appetites in the whole course of my waried career. Robert.

THE SILVER KING;

OR, BEAUTIFUL AS A BUTLER.

The Drama at the Princess’s, written by Messrs. A. Jones—not
the Jones, only A Jones,—and Henry Herman, is, except for one
fault, well constructed, carefully written, admirably placed on the
stage, forcibly played by the men, weakly by the women, but suffi-
ciently interesting from first to last when once the spectator has

granted the rather improbable
basis on which the whole action
rests,—though ’tis fair to say that
the action never does “ rest ” any
more than do the villains of the
play, who carry on their work
with unflagging spirit.

The situation in Scene 3, Act I.,
which brings down the Curtain,
and the house, on the termina-
tion of some remarkably fine
acting on Mr. Wilson Bar-
rett’s part, specially as Denver
the Drunkard, is, we believe, tho-
roughly new and original. Denver
has come to kill Geoffrey Ware, but, stupified by drink, only wakes
up to find himself alone with the corpse of Geoffrey, who has been
shot by the captain of a gang of burglars. Then Denver, after
stretching himself, and exclaiming, “Where am IF Where?
Where ? ” approaches the body, starts, and echoes his own question,
“ Ware ! Is this Some
Ware, or Ho
Hard Ware? IH
Summer Ware—

Winter Ware? <EE ”

Ware? A Wash -
a Ware? HeiE
Ware—on the flcn w F/llVl
and not in the G— t-
BedofWare!” Gr~

~11~ „„ « zz

“ 0 Ware and 0 Ware! ”

out himself bein
ware! Then
staggers off, and
house, where he
done, and his w
as his own butler,
of his hard-earnt
away with himsel
Mr. George I

P CO

=. SZ

i» Q

Cooper, Charm j
Act II. Denver \
accident, and he :

O

O

And now comes either a very weak point, or real touch of nature,
according to the view of each individual spectator. Being free,
Denver does not at once go to his wife, and. say, “ Now we ’ll be
off!” nor does he go away to Boulogne, for example—(very few
people, by the way, would think of going to Boulogne, for example;
but we didn’t mean that)—taking the name of Jones or Herman,
and from that salubrious sea-port send for his wife and child to
come out to him, and share his new name, and probable fortune.
Ho ; he makes use of his liberty, and of as much as remains of the
confiding Butler’s forty sovereigns, to bolt to Australia, leaving
his wife and child behind him to get on as best they can, and
sponge to any extent on Daniel Jaikes, the aged domestic above
mentioned.

The man who takes a cynical view of married life, would at once
say that Denver, with forty pounds in his pocket and free to call
himself anything he likes and to begin the world again as a
bachelor without responsibility, would naturally go away and enjoy
himself; but the Respectable Member of Society, or the inexperi-
enced Lover, would take the other
line and say, “ Of course, he might
go away ; but, hang it all, he’d at
once send for his wife ana child—
which he could do in perfect safety.”

We do not pretend to decide:

Messrs. Jones and Herman make
him go away, give him a silver-
mine, and then bring him back to
his own native land, dressed much
in the style of that lugubrious
person, the husband of Mrs. Haller,
once well known and indeed popular
as “The Stranger,” with white hair,
a Guy-Fawkes hat, and an invin-
cible propensity for wearing dis-
guises and making long speeches
just at a time when everybody most
wants the Play to be “ getting on.”

However, Mr. Wilson Barrett &

Co. must be satisfied that the Play is getting on uncommonly well.

Then the Silver King disguises himself as a modern “ poor Tom’s
a-cold,” and easily deceives the knowing ones, who open the door
and take bim in, when he in turn takes them in, and, mastered by
some unaccountable desire to frighten the villains with a melodra-
matic attitude, he starts up among the bales and barrels in the
marine-store-dealer’s place, and exclaims “I am Wilfred Denver!”
which so takes them aback that, though they are armed and are four
to one, they actually let him escape scot free. “ Conscience makes
cowards of us all,” we know; but, as not one of these blackguards
ever had any conscience, and as Captain Spider possesses the greatest
sang-froid possible, this situation is comparatively tame.

The remainder of the play is the return of the dead ’un, reminding
us of La Joiefait Peur. Good plays, like good men, have their little
weaknesses, but, making allowance for these, our friends in

Mr. Barrett still as “ The Stranger ” makes his Missis halier ! The Butler
weeps at a reminiscence of his Childhood.

front cannot do better than pass an evening in the company of The
Silver King; or, Beautiful as a Butler. And they won’t see much
better acting of its kind, than that of Mr. Wilson Barrett in the
earlier part of the play, and of Mr. Willard and Mr. George
Barrett throughout.

How that Arabi’s trial is finished, Mrs. Rahsbotham sincerely
trusts that all the European Powers will settle down quietly and
smoke the Calomel of peace.

Return of Mr. Barrett as “The
Stranger,” or Bogie the Silvery
Haired King.

A Problem in Real (and Theatrical) Property.—[Case for
Counsel, picked up in the Globe.)—After hearing the Wills, to find
the rightful Eyre.