Page:What will he do with it.djvu/255

CHAPTER VI.

Threadbare is the simile which compares the world to a stage. Schiller, less complimentary than Shakspeare, lowers the illustration from a stage to a puppet-show. But ever between realities and shows there is a secret communication, an undetected interchange—sometimes a stern reality in the heart of the ostensible actor; a fantastic stage-play in the brain of the unnoticed spectator. The Bandit's Child on the proscenium is still poor little Sophy, in spite of garlands and rouge. But that honest roughlooking fellow to whom, in respect for services to Sovereign and Country, the apprentice yields way—may he not be—the crafty Comedian?

Taran-taran-tara—rub-a-dub-dub—play up horn—roll drum—a quarter to eight; and the crowd already thick before Rugge's Grand Exhibition—" Remorseless Baron and Bandit's Child! Young Phenomenon—Juliet Araminta—Patronized by the Nobility in general, and expecting daily to be summoned to perform before the Queen—Vivat Regina!"—Rub-a-dub-dub. The company issue from the curtain—range in front of the proscenium. Splendid dresses. The Phenomenon!—'tis she!

"My eyes, there's a beauty!" cries the clown.

The days have already grown somewhat shorter; but it is not yet dusk. How charmingly pretty she still is, despite that horrid paint; but how wasted those poor bare snowy arms!

A most doleful lugubrious dirge mingles with the drum and horn. A man has forced his way close by the stage—a man with a confounded cracked hurdy-gurdy. Whine—whine— creaks the hurdy-gurdy, "Stop that—stop that muzeek," cries a delicate apprentice, clapping his hands to his ears.

"Pity a poor blind—" answers the man with a hurdy-gurdy.

"Oh, you are blind, are you? but we are not deaf. There's a penny not to play. What black thing have you got there by a string?"

"My dog, Sir!"

"Devilish ugly one—not like a dog—more like a bear—with horns!"

"I say, master," cries the clown, "Here's a blind man come to see the Phenomenon!"

The crowd laugh; they make way for the blind man's black dog. They suspect, from the clown's address, that the blind man has something to do with the company.

You never saw two uglier specimens of their several species than the blind man and his black dog. He had rough red hair and a red beard, his face had a sort of twist that made every feature seem crooked. His eyes were not bandaged, but the