DOI Heft:
May 11, 1889
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17687#0240
May 11, 1889.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVART. 231
PROPORTIONS.
Buyer. “ In future, as my Collection increases, and my Wall-space is limited, and Price no object, perhaps you world
LET ME HAVE A LITTLE MORE ‘PICTURE,’ AND A LITTLE LESS ‘MOUNT’ !”
WHAT MR. PUNCH’S MOON SAW.
FOURTEENTH EVENING.
“ Early one Summer evening last year,” said the Moon, “I was
looking down on some Public Pleasure Grounds, where a ‘ Grand
Gala and Fete,' as limy call it, was going on. Tne boys from some
Training Snip or School had been
invited to attend, and had come in
their white and blue uniforms, looking
so sturdy, and healthy, and happy, as
they performed various gymnastic
exercises with clubs, dumb-bells, and
cutlasses, in the grounds, while their
band, who were all hoys too, played
lively airs. When they were dis-
missed, the spectators found them-
selves provided with a rival attraction,
though on a smaller scale. Here, too,
the performers were quite young and
dressed like sailors, but there were
only.a few of them, and they differed,
too, in other respects. For one thing,
the second body were not so smart and
healthy-looking, nor nearly so well set
up as the real sailor-boys; for another,
they were commanded—not by grown-
up officers, hut by a little person dressed as nearly as possible to
resemble your famous Admiral, Lord Nelson. The crowd gathered
round, greatly amused, as the miniature commander halted his
force. Some would have it that he was a boy, but I thought that a
hoy would have looked sheepish and awkward dressed up like that,
and I was certain from the first that the little Admiral must be a girl.
“ I can see her now, in her quaint hat and white wig, her gold-
laced coat and white knee-breeches, as she strutted up and down,
pretending to take snuff, and inspect the boys drawn up in line
through a small spy-glass she carried. She was rather a pretty
child, though she would have appeared to more advantage on a
lighted stage than there, for it was still broad daylight, and her face
looked pallid and unhealthy under the rouge some one had put on
her cheeks.
“But no one could have been happier or more perfectly pleased
with herself than she was. Everyone was looking on and openly
admiring her gallant bearing, while she paced the path like a
quarter-deck, and bullied any boy who had not put his feet at
exactly the right angle. The hoys, who, like herself, had been
engaged in the neighbourhood for the occasion, submitted with sulky
glowering faces, for they felt mortified to be seen being ordered
about like that by a mere girl. And I noticed that the pride and
self-satisfaction of the small Nelson seemed to increase visibly every
instant. The manager—a big, coarse-looking man, with a thick
gold chain and a dyed moustache—had come out into the grounds,
and she made her way up to his side at once, and began to converse
affably and easily, as with an equal, giving him her views, with
little explanatory waves of her hand, upon the most suitable place
for marshalling her company. She was quite aware that all eyes
were upon her, and that even the boys under her authority were
secretly impressed with her coolness. The Manager, who happened
to be in a good humour just then, addressed her as ‘ my dear,’ and
smiled indulgently ; perhaps he was amused by her presumption,
and the wonderful airs she gave herself. Presently he told her to put
her company through their manoeuvres:
“ And then—I don’t know how it was, whether Nelson lost her
head and forgot the proper word of command, or whether the boys
turned mutinous and made mistakes on purpose—hut everything
went wrong somehow ; there was nothing but blundering and con-
fusion. The Admiral grew less and less confident, until her face
was so red that she no longer needed rouge; the bystanders began to
titter and make rude remarks, and the Manager left off smiling. _
‘ ‘ At last he called up the incompetent Commander, and publicly
rebuked her—so loudly, that everyone could hear what he said. And
the poor little Nelson, thoroughly humbled and frightened by his
rough sarcasm, hung her head, and hurst into tears of very unheroic
mortification before the whole company ! Then,” said the Moon, “ I
hid my face behind a convenient cloud, for I really could not bear to
look on any longer.”
PROPORTIONS.
Buyer. “ In future, as my Collection increases, and my Wall-space is limited, and Price no object, perhaps you world
LET ME HAVE A LITTLE MORE ‘PICTURE,’ AND A LITTLE LESS ‘MOUNT’ !”
WHAT MR. PUNCH’S MOON SAW.
FOURTEENTH EVENING.
“ Early one Summer evening last year,” said the Moon, “I was
looking down on some Public Pleasure Grounds, where a ‘ Grand
Gala and Fete,' as limy call it, was going on. Tne boys from some
Training Snip or School had been
invited to attend, and had come in
their white and blue uniforms, looking
so sturdy, and healthy, and happy, as
they performed various gymnastic
exercises with clubs, dumb-bells, and
cutlasses, in the grounds, while their
band, who were all hoys too, played
lively airs. When they were dis-
missed, the spectators found them-
selves provided with a rival attraction,
though on a smaller scale. Here, too,
the performers were quite young and
dressed like sailors, but there were
only.a few of them, and they differed,
too, in other respects. For one thing,
the second body were not so smart and
healthy-looking, nor nearly so well set
up as the real sailor-boys; for another,
they were commanded—not by grown-
up officers, hut by a little person dressed as nearly as possible to
resemble your famous Admiral, Lord Nelson. The crowd gathered
round, greatly amused, as the miniature commander halted his
force. Some would have it that he was a boy, but I thought that a
hoy would have looked sheepish and awkward dressed up like that,
and I was certain from the first that the little Admiral must be a girl.
“ I can see her now, in her quaint hat and white wig, her gold-
laced coat and white knee-breeches, as she strutted up and down,
pretending to take snuff, and inspect the boys drawn up in line
through a small spy-glass she carried. She was rather a pretty
child, though she would have appeared to more advantage on a
lighted stage than there, for it was still broad daylight, and her face
looked pallid and unhealthy under the rouge some one had put on
her cheeks.
“But no one could have been happier or more perfectly pleased
with herself than she was. Everyone was looking on and openly
admiring her gallant bearing, while she paced the path like a
quarter-deck, and bullied any boy who had not put his feet at
exactly the right angle. The hoys, who, like herself, had been
engaged in the neighbourhood for the occasion, submitted with sulky
glowering faces, for they felt mortified to be seen being ordered
about like that by a mere girl. And I noticed that the pride and
self-satisfaction of the small Nelson seemed to increase visibly every
instant. The manager—a big, coarse-looking man, with a thick
gold chain and a dyed moustache—had come out into the grounds,
and she made her way up to his side at once, and began to converse
affably and easily, as with an equal, giving him her views, with
little explanatory waves of her hand, upon the most suitable place
for marshalling her company. She was quite aware that all eyes
were upon her, and that even the boys under her authority were
secretly impressed with her coolness. The Manager, who happened
to be in a good humour just then, addressed her as ‘ my dear,’ and
smiled indulgently ; perhaps he was amused by her presumption,
and the wonderful airs she gave herself. Presently he told her to put
her company through their manoeuvres:
“ And then—I don’t know how it was, whether Nelson lost her
head and forgot the proper word of command, or whether the boys
turned mutinous and made mistakes on purpose—hut everything
went wrong somehow ; there was nothing but blundering and con-
fusion. The Admiral grew less and less confident, until her face
was so red that she no longer needed rouge; the bystanders began to
titter and make rude remarks, and the Manager left off smiling. _
‘ ‘ At last he called up the incompetent Commander, and publicly
rebuked her—so loudly, that everyone could hear what he said. And
the poor little Nelson, thoroughly humbled and frightened by his
rough sarcasm, hung her head, and hurst into tears of very unheroic
mortification before the whole company ! Then,” said the Moon, “ I
hid my face behind a convenient cloud, for I really could not bear to
look on any longer.”