The Belgian Master has tried, as he has already informed the world, "to write SHAKSPEARE for a company of Marionnettes." Encouraged by his extraordinary success, he has soared higher yet, and adapted our greatest national drama for the purposes of the (Independent) itinerant Stage. We are enabled by the courtesy of his publishers to give a few specimen scenes from this _magnum opus_, which, as will be seen, requires somewhat more elaborate mounting and mechanical effects than are at present afforded by the ordinary Punch Show. In M. MAETERLINCK's version, Ponsch becomes the Prince of Half-seas-over-Holland; he is the victim of hereditary homicidal mania, complicated by neurotic hysteria. Inflamed by the insinuations of Mynheer Olenikke--a kind of Dutch Mephistopheles and Iago combined--he is secretly jealous of his consort the Princess Jödi's preference for the society of Djoë, the Court Jester and Society Clown. Here is our first sample:-- _A Chamber in the Castle. Princess JÖDI discovered at a window with DJOË._ _Jödi_. Lo! lo! a shower of stars is falling upon the fowl-house! _Djoë_. Oh! oh! a shower of stars upon the fowl-house? (_A water pipe in the back-garden bursts suddenly and splashes them._) Ah! ah! I am wet all over! Have you a pocket handkerchief? _Jödi_. Oh, look! a comet--an enormous one--has descended into the water-butt! The sky is blood-red, and the moon has turned the colour of green cheese. This bodes some disaster! _Djoë_. It is unsettled--rainy--unpleasant weather. Can you lend me an umbrella? _Jödi_. I cannot lend you an umbrella, because I have lent mine to the gardener's wife. Owls are roosting on the chimney-pots, and a stickleback has jumped out of the pond. Hush, my Lord the Prince approaches! [_Prince PONSCH enters, bearing a stout staff, which he nurses gloomily, like an infant; a hurricane is heard in the middle distance; the waterpipe sobs strangely and then expires; a blackbeetle comes out of a cupboard and runs uneasily about, until a flash of lightning enters down the chimney and kills it. PONSCH stands glaring at DJOË and the Princess._ _Djoë_ (_hastily_). There is going to be a storm. Do not forget what I have uttered. Good evening! [_He goes; the wind whistles a popular air through the keyhole._ _Jödi_ (_nervously_). What an appalling evening! I have never seen the like of such a sky. _Ponsch_. There is something about you this evening--how beautiful you are looking! Bring BEBBI-PONSCH. _Jödi_ (_fetching the Infant Prince_). Here he is. Why do you look so strangely at him? _Bebbi-Ponsch_ (_a small, but important part_). Is Pa-a-par poo-oorly? Won't he p'ay wiz me no mo-ore? _Ponsch_. The soul of a little stage-child looms from under his green eyes! OLENIKKE was right, and I-- No matter. I will open the window. [_Opens it, and throws BEBBI-P. out. Sound of water-splash audible._