Several times during the piece I was much affected--when he wound his
arms round his wife, stuck his head over her shoulder, and kissed the
back of her neck--when he made a grand exit, with three stamps, a hop, a
run, and two long straddles--when he talked grand about the thunder,
shook his fist at the man in the flies--when he killed the soldiers in
the council room, shouted for them to "come one and all," and then ran
away for fear they would--when he swore at the man who did not give him
his cue--when he knelt down and said grace over his dead boy, and then
got up and stuck his wife with the butcher-knife; but at no part of the
whole piece was I so impressed with his pathetic power, his transcendent
genius, as when he laid his hand solemnly on his stomach, and said "What
a bore O, cannot lie!" (Damphool asked, in a whisper, if Othello's
occupation was gone).
And at the death scene, when he was shot, I was again touched to the
heart; first he wabbled about like a top-heavy liberty pole in a high
wind; then he stuck out one leg, and wiggled it, after the manner of a
galvanic bull-frog; then sat down on the floor, opened his eyes and
looked around; then grappled an Indian on one side, clutched a soldier
on the other, struggled to his feet, staggered about like a drunken
Dutchman, made a rush forwards, then a leap sideways, stiffened out like
a frozen pig, collapsed like a wet dish-cloth, exerted himself till his
face was the color of an underdone beefsteak, then sank back into the
arms of the Indians, whispered to let him down easy, rolled up the
whites of his eyes, settled himself to die--concluded to have a parting
curse at the surrounding people, took a long swear, laid down, and with
a noise in his throat like castanets, a couple of vigorous kicks and a
feeble groan, gave up the ghost.
Bull Dogge asserted that he would resuscitate, brush the dust off his
legs (take some gin and sugar, and come out and make a speech), all of
which he did; the butcher boys in the gallery (Damphool says
Hellitisplit commenced life as a respectable butcher-boy, but has
degenerated into the man he is,) gave three cheers, Hellitisplit opened
his mouth four times, shut it thrice (he went off with it wide open),
and backed off with a grace which we may suppose would be exhibited by a
mudturtle on the tight-rope.
Damphool was in ecstacies--Bull Dogge asked me how I liked the "great
American," &c. I replied that I knew not which most to admire, his
euphonious voice, or his tremendous straddle, but that (notwithstanding
the late appropriation of the name by a rival show-shop), I was ready to
maintain with the butcher boys that there was but one Metropolitan
Theatre, and Hellitisplit is its profit.
XIX.
"Side Shows" of the City.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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