Prince Boo Boo himself was taken as a hostage for the lives of three French sailors who had been captured by his father. Unfortunately the king’s appetite was so ferocious and the sailors were so fat that without thinking about his youngest son he went and ate the lot. Prince Boo Boo was carried off to Europe where Unwin U. Blundell, always on the quee vyve for novelties that will attract his many patrons all over the civilised world, secured his exclusive services. Come on, say the word, and we’ll get the bills printed and the costume made in Liverpool, and on Monday week we’ll show ’em what’s what when we open in St. Helens.” The runaway did not hesitate. Mr. Blundell’s offer solved the problem of his immediate future far more swiftly and far more easily than he would ever have dared to hope. Bram was a great success as a young cannibal chief. His natural shivers during the excesses of an English summer filled the hearts of all the women with the warmest sympathy, and a moment later the way he gloated over imagined titbits of their anatomy made them shiver as realistically as himself. “It’s going great, laddie,” Unwin U. Blundell declared. “To rights, it’s going. Props at the Royalty, Blackburn, who’s an old pal of mine, is making me a two-pronged wooden fork, which was used by your dad, King Noo Noo. With a bit of bullock’s blood we’ll have the ladies of Bolton in a state of blue horrors next week. And if one of ’em faints, laddie, there’s a shilling onto your salary when the ghost walks next Friday night.” The Sisters Garibaldi were inclined to be jealous of Bram at first, but their feelings were appeased by being given a special new dance in which they were dressed in costumes that looked like rag mats trimmed with feather dusters, a dance that began with a seated swaying movement and ended with wild leaps into the air to the accompaniment of cannibalistic whoops. Bram stayed with Unwin U. Blundell for nearly two years; but he did not remain a young cannibal chief to the exclusion of everything else. “It’s not good for any actor to play one part too long. My old granddad was considered the finest Hamlet ever seen on the Doncaster circuit. Well, I give you my word, after you’d heard him in ‘To be or not to be,’ you didn’t know yourself if you were or if you weren’t. But he played it too often, and he thought he’d vary things a bit by playing Richard III and Macbeth on the Shakespeare nights. But it was too late. He knew he’d waited too long the very first night he played Macbeth, because instead of saying ‘Is this a dagger that I see before me?’ he started off ‘Is this a bodkin that I see before me?’ It humiliated him, poor old chap, and he gave up tragedy and took to farce, and that killed him. Yes, it’s a mistake to get into a groove.”