“Tragedy,” saith the Aristotelian recipe for cooking up a serious drama, “should have the probable, the marvellous, and the pathetic.”  In the tableau thus presented, the audience beheld the three conditions strictly complied with all at once.  “It was highly probable,” as Mr. Swivel observed to the source of pipes, ’bacca, and malt—­in other words, to the landlady he was addressing—­that his master, the showman, was unable to pay the score he had run up; it was marvellous that the proprietor of so popular a puppet as “Punch” should not have even the price of a pint of ale in his treasury; lastly, that circumstance was deeply pathetic; for what so heart-rending as the exhibition of fallen greatness, of broken-down prosperity, of affluence regularly stumped and hard-up!  The fact is, that “Punch,” his theatre, and corps dramatique, are in pawn for eight-and-ninepence!

In the midst of this distress there appears a young gentleman, giving vent to passionate exclamations, while furiously buttoning up a tight surtout.  The object of his love is the daughter of the object of his hate. Mr. Snozzle, having previously made his bow, overhears him, and being the acting manager of “Punch,” and having a variety of plots for rescuing injured lovers from inextricable difficulties on hand, offers one of them to the lover, considerably over cost price; namely, for the puppet-detaining eight-and-ninepence, and a glass of brandy-and-water.  The bargain being struck, the scene changes.

To the happiness of being the possessor of “Punch,” Mr. Snozzle adds that of having a wonderful wife—­a lady of universal talents; who dances in spangled shoes, plays on the tamburine, and sings Whitechapel French like a native.  This inestimable creature has already gone round the town on a singing, dancing, and cash-collecting expedition; accompanied by the drum, mouth-organ, and Swivel.  We now find her enchanting the flinty-hearted father, Old Fellum.  Having been instrumental, by means of her vocal abilities, in drawing from him a declaration of amorous attachment and half-a-crown, she retires, to bury herself in the arms of her husband, and to eradicate the score, recorded in chalk, at Mrs. Rummer’s hotel.

In the meantime Snozzle, having sold a plot, proceeds to fulfil the bargain by executing it.  He enters with PUNCH’S theatre, to treat Old Fellum with a second exhibition, and his daughter with an elopement; for in the midst of the performance the young lady detects the big drum in the act of “winking at her;” and she soon discovers that PUNCH’S orchestra is no other than her own lover. Fellum is delighted with the show, to which he is attentive enough to allow of the lovers’ escaping.  He pursues them when it is too late, and having been so precipitate in his exit as to remember to forget to pay for his amusement, Swivel steals a handsome cage, parrot included.