Then be not coy, but use your lungs,
    And while ye may, cry “Waiter!”
  For having held just now your tongues,
    You may repent it later.

* * * * *

[Illustration:  FANCY PORTRAIT.

THE HUMBUG-HUNTING FERRET. (VIVERRA LABOUCHERIENSIS.)

The Times (loq.).  “AH!  WONDERFUL INSTINCT, AND OCCASIONALLY USEFUL.  BUT I’M NOT PARTICULARLY PARTIAL TO HIM!”]

* * * * *

PONSCH, PRINCE OF OLLENDORF.

(M.  MAETERLINCK’S VERY LAST MASTERPIECE.)

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 Joedi’s preference for the society of Djoe, the Court Jester and Society Clown.  Here is our first sample:—­

    A Chamber in the Castle.  Princess JOeDI discovered at a
    window with DJOE.

Joedi.  Lo! lo! a shower of stars is falling upon the fowl-house!

Djoe.  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?

Joedi.  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!

Djoe.  It is unsettled—­rainy—­unpleasant weather.  Can you lend me an umbrella?

Joedi.  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 DJOE and the Princess.

Djoe (hastily).  There is going to be a storm.  Do not forget what I have uttered.  Good evening!