PUNCH AND JUDYCHAPTER XIIPUNCH AND JUDY
PUNCH AND JUDY
WhenMary Hope and her aunt came again to the portrait painter’s house, he presented me to her with a smiling look. ‘There, Miss Mary,’ said he, ‘you see I have been at work upon this child of yours, and I think with good effect. And now that the countenance can be seen, we should observe that this doll has really very good features. I mean that they are more marked than is common with dolls.She has a good nose; very bright eyes; and what is very uncommon to see in a doll—she has something like a chin. She has, also, a very pretty mouth, and a sensible forehead. But another remarkable discovery I have made is that of her name! This bracelet which I have cleaned and brightened, I find to be gold, and upon it is engraved ‘Maria Poppet!’
Mary Hope received me with great pleasure, and gave Mr. Johnson many, many thanks for his kindness in taking so much pains about me. ‘But what dress,’ said she, ‘is this you have given her? Is it not too warm?’ ‘I fear it is,’ said Mr. Johnson, laughing. ‘It is only a bit of green-baize for a wrapper, and an old silver cord for a girdle, which I happened to have at hand, and thought this was better than nothing. You can make her a nice new summer dress when you get home.’ Mary declared she would do so that very day.
The sitting for Aunt Brown’s portraitbeing concluded, she went downstairs with Mary, who carried me, tossing me up in the air for joy, and catching me as I was falling. This frightened me very much, and I was so glad when we got downstairs. Upon the mat we found the great dog Nep asleep. He jumped up in a moment, and went bouncing out before us into the street. A hackney coach was waiting at the door, and directly the steps were let down, Nep jumped in first. We arrived at their lodgings, which were very comfortable and very quiet, after all the alarms, and dangers, and narrow escapes, and troubles I had recently gone through. The weather was very rainy, nearly the whole week, so that I was never taken out during that time; but the days passed very pleasantly, as I often heard Mary read pretty books aloud to her aunt. She also busied herself in making me new clothes, for indeed I wanted everything, as at this time my only dress was the green-baize robe, with the bit of old silvercord round the waist, which Mr. Johnson had given me.
One fine day, after the bad weather was over, a hackney coach was at the door waiting to take us out somewhere. Down we went, Neptune, as usual, running downstairs before us with his red tongue out, and leaping in first. ‘Now, Mary,’ said her aunt, as we drove along, ‘shall we go to the exhibition of pictures at the Royal Academy in Trafalgar Square? (Neptune, do not poke your great nose so upon my knees—) or shall we go to the Diorama in Regent’s Park? (Neptune, your paws are not clean—you will soil my silk gown—) or shall we go to the Panorama in Leicester Square? (Neptune, your nose is so cold—) or shall we go to the British Museum?’
‘Oh, dear aunt,’ said Mary, ‘I do not know which is best. I should like to go to them all! (Nep, you must not lick the doll’s face—the fresh paint may come off!)’
‘But you cannot see all in the same day,’ said her aunt.
‘No, aunt,’ replied Mary, ‘I know that—only I could not help saying what I should like. Let us go first, then, to the British Museum. But will they let me take Maria Poppet in with me?’
‘I should think they would hardly object,’ said her aunt, ‘for I never yet saw a doll left among the walking sticks and umbrellas at the door, however plain the doll might be. They could never object to a pretty doll like Maria—though, to be sure, she might be better dressed. Really, you must make haste with her clothes. I cannot let you take her out any more in that strange dress Mr. Johnson tied round her.’
Mary promised to finish my clothes in a day or two. At this moment the coach stopped, in consequence of a crowd that was assembled in the street round a performance of Punch and Judy.
Mary’s aunt put down the glass at oneside in order to see what occasioned the stoppage; and as it was quite impossible for the coach to go on immediately, both Mary and her aunt sat looking out of the window at the acting of Mr. Punch. He was behaving in his usual naughty and impudent way, and was now pretending to nurse his child. This child was a wooden doll, dressed in an old green sort of a night-gown, not unlike the color of my own green wrapper. Presently the child was heard to cry very loudly; so Mr. Punch declared he would have nothing to do with such a cross child, and would throw it out of the window. The child cried again; and Punch actually did what he had threatened, and tossed the wooden doll out upon the heads of the crowd who were gathered around, and it fell somewhere among them. This produced such scrambling and confusion, and laughing and noise, that it made Neptune jump up in our coach and thrust his head out of the coach window to see what was the matter.When the people saw this they laughed louder than before, and made more noise, so that Nep, thinking they meant to be rude to us, began to bark and throw himself about from one side to the other; in doing which he accidentally ran his head against Mary’s shoulder, with such a jerk that he knocked me out of her arms, and I fell down among the crowd!
‘Oh, Nep, Nep,’ cried Mary, ‘what have you done?’
In a moment out of the window jumped Neptune, and began to scramble through the crowd in search of me, barking away as loudly as he could. The disturbance and confusion increased; but who shall describe my dismay when I saw Nep, in his haste, seize upon the child of Mr. Punch and carry it back in his mouth to the coach instead of me; while at the same moment a tall man, picking me up, handed me into Punch’s show, saying, ‘Here, take your child, Mr. Punch!’