The Professor (on Stage).  Ladies and Gentlemen, I shall commence by an attempt to give you an imitation of that popular and favourite songster, the Thrush—­better known to some of you, I daresay, as the Throstle, or Mavis! (He gives the Thrush—­which somehow doesn’t “go.”) I shall next endeavour to represent that celebrated and tuneful singing-bird—­the Sky-lark. (He does it, but the Lark doesn’t quite come off.) I shall next try to give you those two sweet singers, the Male and Female Canary—­the gentleman in the stalls with the yellow ’air will represent the female bird on this occasion, he must not be offended, for it is a ’igh compliment I am paying him, a harmless professional joke. (The Canaries obtain but tepid acknowledgments.) I shall now conclude my illustrations of bird-life with my celebrated imitation of a waiter drawing the cork from a bottle of gingerbeer, and drinking it afterwards.

[Does so; rouses the audience to frantic enthusiasm, and retires after triple re-call.

[Illustration]

The Voluble Lady in the Shilling Stalls (during the performance of a Thrilling Melodramatic Sketch).  I’ve nothing to say against her ‘usban’, a quiet, respectable man, and always treated me as a lady, with grey whiskers—­but that’s neither here nor there—­and I speak of parties as I find them—­well.  That was a Thursday.  On the Saturday there came a knock at my door, and I answered it, and there was she, saying, as cool as you please—­(Heroine on Stage.  “Ah, no, no—­you would not ruin me?  You will not tell my husband?”) So I told her.  “I’m very sorry,” I says, “but I can’t lend that frying-pan to nobody.”  So I got up.  Two hours after, as I was going down-stairs, she come out of her room, and says,—­“’Allo, ROSE, ’ow are yer?” as if nothing had ‘appened.  “Oh, jolly,” I says, or somethink o’ that sort—­I wasn’t going to take no notice of her—­and she says, “Going out?” like that.  I says.  “Oh, yes; nothing to stay in for,” I says, careless-like; so Mrs. PIPER, she never said nothing, and I didn’t say nothing; and so it went on till Monday—­well!  Her ‘usban’ met me in the passage; and he said to me—­good-tempered and civil enough, I must say—­he said—­(Villain on Stage.  “Curse you!  I’ve had enough of this fooling!  Give me money, or I’ll twist your neck, and fling you into yonder mill-dam, to drown!”) So o’ course I’d no objection to that; and all she wanted, in the way of eatables and drink, she ’ad—­no, let me finish my story first.  Well, just fancy ’er now!  She asked me to step in; and she says, “Ow are you?” and was very nice, and I never said a word—­not wishing to bring up the past, and—­I didn’t tell you this—­they’d a kind of old easy chair in the room—­and the only remark I made, not meaning anythink, was—­(Hero