Egypt :: :: University of Virginia Library

“Rooti-tooti-tooti-too!” 'Tis the Punch and Judy Show;
I remember it long ago
In my dear old puppet days,
And I love the hunchback Jester and all his wicked ways.

“Rooti-tooti-tooti-too!” 'Tis a very jolly sound,
And the Pan-pipes tootle too, and a crowd is gaping round;
I join the throng, arrested by the old familiar cry,
And the children's happy faces make me smile—ah me! and sigh.

Now the play begins: there's Judy! and the quarrels soon commence:
She is very shrill, is Judy, and has very little sense,
So the red-nosed rascal batters her and beats her from her senses,
He is such a downright villain, with no underhand pretences.

But he batters her and beats her, just a little bit beyond
What husbands are allowed to do, however fierce or fond,
And soon a man in blue appears, a truly dreadful sight,
That makes the dear old scoundrel quake and quiver in a fright,

Until he takes him unawares and cracks him on the crown
And he who had laid down the law must now himself lie down.

And after that come many men: I know them not by name;
It does not matter who they are, their end is all the same;
He thwacks them all upon the head and lays them out in rows,
Then horribly he chuckles, with his finger to his nose.

Now comes the part I love the best; a merry clown appears,

A little thing of laughter, and perchance sometimes of tears,
But now his only object is to worry poor old Punch,
Who has done a dozen murders and has done them in a bunch.

He mixes up those corpses in a most ingenious way,
And how many bodies lie there, 'tis impossible to say;
For whenever Punch would count them, as a sportsman counts his rabbits
(And it is not many murderers that have such careful habits),
That most delightful Andrew proceeds at once to show
How a dozen planted corpses can multiply and grow.

'Tis a wondrous thing to watch him, how old Pontius he can cozen,
For he always manages to make the twelve a baker's dozen,
Until the ancient sinner, with a lot of nasal grumbling,
Detects the gay impostor in a little bit of fumbling.

Then up goes that great club of his; he aims a deadly blow,
Which, had it taken full effect, had broken up the show,
But the Antic still is equal to all possible occasions,
And with a much abraded corpse he wards off all abrasions.

So up and down Punch beats the clown, or, rather tries to beat him,
But never with his cleverest dodge is able to defeat him;
Until the children laugh and scream, to see him in high dudgeon,
For now the clown, by sleight supreme, has robbed him of his bludgeon!

Lord! how he thumps the poor old wretch: enough, one thinks, to blind him;
Then suddenly he rushes out, and leaves the club behind him.
But Punch, who little cares for blows not given below the buckle,

Just rubs his head and pats his nose and soon begins to chuckle.

And now appears a scarlet Judge, who brings a gorgeous Beadle,
A pair of more pomposity than Punch can whack or wheedle;
A parson makes a windy speech, a lawyer one absurder,
And then our poor old friend's condemned to Tyburn Tree for murder.

He calls his dog to comfort him, and Toby comes up smiling
(For dogs can smile as well as men and are often more beguiling),

With his Toby collar round his neck, a dirty mongrel darling,
Who cannot at his master's club prevent himself from snarling.

But little comfort Punch can get, for now an apparition,
A bogey from the nether pit invites him to perdition;
His hair is like a door-mat green, his eyes like fireworks whirring,
He's black as coal—and, gracious me! those corpses all are stirring.

Toby gives one short howl, without apology decamping,

His master in a corner cowers, no more inclined for ramping,
As Bogey, in an awful voice, says this time, without joking,
There really is a grid prepared, and pops off to his stoking.

And see! the red-haired hangman comes, a horrid human weasel,
Who brings his gallows with him, as a painter brings his easel;
And now all eyes are riveted and still is every tongue—
Oh, can His Red-faced Nosiness be going to be hung?

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He is looking rather limp and lax, as if he now thought sinning,
Which is so haltered in the end, best curbed in the beginning,
And when Jack Ketch the necktie shows, as if he were a draper,
A child might almost knock him down with a spilliken of paper.

He is always weak without his club (he had let it lie beside him),
As Samson was without his hair, and anyone can ride him;
When he cuddles up his cudgel, all his naughtiness comes back,

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He's a match for Jack the Hangman, or for any other Jack.

So when he has embraced again his only friend, his staff,
He recovers, with that chuckle, which is his peculiar laugh,
And delicately stepping, like poor Agag, on his toes
(Although one cannot see them), to the last of all his foes,
He humbly cries, “O Master Ketch, pray do me this last grace,
To show me how to noose your neck, if I were in your place.”

So that very stupid person (tho' there's many a man that chooses

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To poke his silly neck into unnecessary nooses)
Puts his own head through the collar, like a yokel at a fair,
And of course Punch hoists him skyward, where he dangles in the air.

And that's the end, or ought to be, although I'm not quite certain
That we do not get another glimpse of Bogey, ere the curtain;
But anyhow the moral is (though some may think it frightful)
That Punch, because of all his crimes, is immortal and delightful,
And when the showman's wife comes round, a woman thin and pallid,

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I put a shilling in her cup, to prove approval valid.

“Rooti-tooti-tooti-too!” Punch grows more and more conceited,
Law and order are defeated,
And the Pan-pipes tootle too,
And the drum and Toby make a valedictory ado.

“Rooti-tooti-too!” Dear old Punch, I love him so!
I can hear him long ago,
Down the distance of the days;
May he never be converted from his charming wicked ways!