J. Ketch. Then a good supper?
Punch. I never eat suppers: they are not wholesome.
J. Ketch. But you must come out. Come out, and be hanged.[1]
Punch. You would not be so cruel.
J. Ketch. Why were you so cruel as to commit so many murders?
Punch. But that's no reason why you should be cruel, too, and murder me.[2]
J. Ketch. Come, directly.
Punch. I can't; I got one bone in my leg.
J. Ketch. And you've got one bone in your neck, but that shall be soon broken. Then I must fetch you. (he goes to the prison, and after a struggle, in which Punch calls out, "Mercy! mercy! I'll never do so again!"
Jack Ketch brings him out to the front of the stage)
Punch. Oh dear! Oh dear! Be quiet—can't you let me be?
J. Ketch. Now, Mr. Punch, no more delay. Put your head through this loop.
Punch. through there! What for?
J. Ketch. Aye, through there.
- ↑ A direct plagiarism from Shakspeare: "Master Barnardine, you must rise and be hanged." Measure for Measure.
- ↑ An instance how Punch's self-possession never forsakes him. In a single sentence he confutes all who contend that man by law should have power over the life of his fellow man.
Tassoni's "Secchia Rapita," Venice, 1747, to Orazio Toscanella,) with some lines quite in the spirit in which our hero speaks in the text.
"Non so più bello star, ch'entro d'un muro, &c.
A prison, truly, is a charming place,
Where all the livelong day we may be idle;
A blest retreat where mind has double space,
Because our bodies we are forc'd to bridle:
Where all that we require is given, not bought,
I mean all good things, and are but denied ill.
When to this happy rest we once are brought,
It verifies the words of Aristotle—
Gross sense decays, and we have time for thought.
