Page 2 Advertisements Column 3

Marlborough Press, Volume II, Issue 104, 27 December 1861, Page 2

called “ Mount Pleasant ” (in derision I presume), on the Waitolii road. Their cart, upon which was painted the name “ Marlborough,” had got capsized—the one wheel being out of sight some feet in the mud, and the other tilted up and spinning round (with riders, of whom more hereafter) on the end of the perpendicular axle. The capsize was caused by unskilful and furious dri /ing. The driver, a big scowling fellow, with shockingly dirty hands, and rigged out in an attorney’s cast-off coat and wig, was foaming with rage, alternately roaring “ out you go,” to some hapless imps in the cart, and abusing the rest of the company for having refused to give him a great lot, under the name of extra back wages, of some public money which had been entrusted to them to carry. But the most mirth-provoking figure of the troupe was the clown, who had evidently gone mad. He raved about “ treason,” “ conspirators,” &c., and fancied himself the chief eunuch of a Turkish bashaw who had been treacherously deposed, and claimed to be promoted in his fallen master’s stead. When the upset occurred, the “ Prima Donna ” of the company, and her handmaid, had been rescued out of the mud and placed upon seats resting on the circle of the wheel above ground. The 'first-named lady was attractively decorated with golden badges; bearing the inscriptions “ Superintendent,” “ Treasurer,” “ Public Auditor,” &c., while her companion, who was a very plain damsel, was decked with some dog tickets, cattle brands, and turnkey’s rusty locks. The clown averred that this homely maiden was persecuting him with her love, while he considered himself the only suitable match for the “ Prima Donna,” and made violent love to her. But the lady was disdainful, and as often as the poor crazy clown made an effort to seize her, the wheel was moved a little round, and she eluded his grasp. He then would piteously beseech one or the other of the stage players to help him to catch her, but only received good-natured shakes of the head and flat refusals. Becoming desperate, and determined to win the lady, he seized a sheepskin to make a saddle, and jumped up on the circle of the wheel, equi-distant from the two damsels, with his face toward? the object of his ambition, and his back towards her companion. The trio being thus mounted, as on a riding “ Boundabout ” at a fair, some wags of the company entered into the joke, and set the wheel revolving. The love or moon-struck poor clown fancied himself on horseback, and just on the point of capturing the coy lady, and his spurring and jerking up and down, and seriously earnest capers, set the others in fits with laughter. Attired in habiliments saturated with pothouse swipes, smelling most offensively, he John Gilpin-like had a belt round his waist, on one side of which hung an old battered pewter pot filled with the abominable fluid ejected by the cuttle-fish. This was labelled “ Godfrey’s Cordial ” On the other side, as a make-weight, was slung a tattered volume entituled “ The Slang Dictionary.” With eyes red with weeping he ever and anon tried to coax the “ Prima Donna,” to take a little of his cordial, which her constitution (he insisted) stood greatly in need of. Again he would beg she would accept him “ if it were only for a very short time to put things straight.” Between these entreaties he would look wistfully over his shoulder at the damsel adorned with the dog tickets, &c., and under the sour grape rejection fit exclaim, “ I will not have you by whomsoever offered.” Both were equally out of his reach, and both disdainful. The dcrisivenhouts of laughter of the bystanders he replied to with spurting on them some of the cuttle-fish fluid. To still further distract him, one of the stagemen, a spry shaver with spectacles on nose, and who did not look as if lie gorged himself with roast beef and plum pudding every day of the week, seized hold of a chair with the word “ Speaker ” carved on the back, and held it out with his tongue in his cheek, inviting the poor excited wheel jockey to rest himself in it—but evidently intending if the offer were accepted, to slip away the chair, and let the poor creature go souse over head in the mire. Another of the gang, a natty but fat fodgel of a chap, compassionately threatened to warn the poor clown of the intended trick; whereupon Mr. Spectacles up with his foot, and declared “ I’ll kick you if you do it.” At this juncture some two or three of the others swore the attempt to extricate the cart was too dirty work for them, and a general row and break up of the company appeared imminent, when the candidate for Bedlam pricking up his ears at the word “kick ” and the noise of the row, shouted out to the sulky driver, with whom he seemed to be in a sort of league, “ Now’s your time.” What it was “time” for I could not particularly divine, but I imagined it to bo for clutching at and carrying off the money. However, the scheme was frustrated whatever it was, by the most of the stage actors calming down and agreeing to appoint as new driver a retired soldier of dccentish appearance and reputation to trudge on with the cart whi di they set to to extricate. This resolution deepened the scowl of the first driver, and