Polly in Pantomime

Polly Mountemple. A Fin de Siècle Story of the Stage. By Charles Holls. 1891

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We did not even trouble to find out from the programme that he was M. Nadini, ventriloquiste and specialité artiste from the music halls to explain the apparent anachronism. We laughed when he stuck a ball into his leg and got it out of his mouth, and we laughed when he had an excited quarrel with Mr Aurelius Snooker the boy doll, to whom he said ‘quiet’ with a gasp, to give him sufficient breath to make that person converse in a stifled whisper. After he had removed the dolls he held a long conversation with a certain Sam who went down the street selling ‘watercresses,’ and up to the roof saying ‘good-night,’ till everybody held their breath for five seconds and heard nothing.

It was quite a relief to get back to the Pantomime and the ‘Forty Thieves,’ but even in the fourth scene when he was once more arrayed in baggy white trousers and a turban, and hauled out to die by Abdallah’s command, we could not divest ourselves of the images of M. Nadini, Aurelius Snooker and Sam, eternally saying ‘good-night’ among the chimney pots.