In this mood I found myself standing before the New Strand Theatre, my attention having been arrested by the word PUNCH blazoned in large letters on a play-bill.

“What can this mean?” quoth I to myself.  “I know a publication called Punch very well, but I never heard of a performance so named.  I’ll go in and see it.  Who knows but it may be an avatar[1] of the Editor of that illustrious periodical, who condescends to discard his dread incognito for the nonce, in order to exhibit himself, for one night only, to the eyes and understandings of admiring London.”

    [1] The Avatar we do not allow—­the illustrious periodical we
        do.—­ED. OF PUNCH.

In another minute I was seated in the boxes, and found a crowded audience in full enjoyment of the quiet waggery of Keeley, who was fooling them to the top of their bent, accoutred from top to toe as Mynheer Punch the Great, while his clever little wife—­who, by the way, possesses, I think, more of the “vis comica” than any actress of the day—­caused sides to shake and eyes to water by her naive and humorous delineation of Mrs. Snozzle.

The curtain had hardly fallen more than a couple of minutes, when a door behind me opened hastily, and a box-keeper thrusting in his head, called out—­“Is there a medical man here?” “I am one,” said I, getting up; “anything the matter?” “Come with me then, sir, if you please,” said he; “a severe accident has just happened to Mrs. Keeley; a falling scene has struck her head, sir, and hurt her dreadfully.”

“Good heavens!” said I, much shocked; “I will come immediately.”

I followed the man to the stage door, and was ushered into a dressing-room with several people in it, where, extended on a sofa, lay the unfortunate lady, whom I had but a few minutes before seen full of life and spirits, delighting hundreds with her unrivalled humour and espieglerie,—­there she lay, in the same fantastic dress she had worn on the stage, pale as death—­a quantity of blood flowing from a fearful wound on her head, and uttering those low quick moans which are indicative of extreme suffering.

Poor little Keeley stood beside the couch, holding her hand; he was still in full fig as Polichinel; and the grotesqueness of his attire contrasted strangely with the anguish depicted on his countenance.  As I came forward, he slowly made way for me—­looked in my face imploringly, as if to gather from its expression some gleam of hope, and then stood aside, in an attitude of profound dejection.

Having felt the sufferer’s pulse, I was about to turn her head gently, in order to examine the nature of the wound, when a hustling noise behind me causing me to turn round, to my infinite dismay, I perceived Mr. Keeley, having pushed the bystanders on one side, in the act of performing a kind of Punchean dance upon the floor, accompanying himself with the vigorous chuckling and crowing peculiar to the hero whose habiliments he wore.  I was horror-stricken—­conceiving that grief had suddenly turned his brain.