y agitated, and the public's
legs instinctively carried them, on each occasion, to behold those great
performers. When--to give these circumstances their highest
application,--"Punch," on Thursday last, came out in the regular drama,
the excitement was no less intense. Boxes were besieged; the pit was
choked up, and the gallery creaked with its celestial encumbrance.

As the curtain drew up, there would have been a death-like silence but for
the unparalleled sales that were taking place in apples, oranges, and
ginger-beer. Expectation was on tip-toe, as were the persons occupying
that department of the theatre called "standing-room." The looked-for
moment came; the "drop" ascended, and the spectators beheld _Mr. 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.
The object of his love is the daughter of the object of his hate. _Mr.
Snozzle_, having previously made his bow, overhears him, and being the
acting manager of "Punch," and having a variety of plots for rescuing
injured lovers from inextricable difficulties on hand, offers one of them
to the lover, considerably over cost price; namely, for the
puppet-detaining eight-and-ninepence, and a glass of brandy-and-water. The
bargain being struck, the scene changes.

To the happiness of being the possessor of "Punch," _Mr. Snozzle_ adds
that of having a wonderful wife--a lady of universal talents; who dances
in spangled shoes, plays on the tamburine,