follow. His Interior is comparatively severe; his Exterior also.
A true Temple of Art needs nothing but seats, drapery, a small
table with two moderator lamps hanging over it, and an ornamental
looking-glass let into the wall. Monsieur in uniform gets behind
the table and surveys us with disdain, his forehead becoming
diabolically intellectual under the moderators. ‘Messieurs et
Mesdames, I present to you the Ventriloquist. He will commence
with the celebrated Experience of the bee in the window. The bee,
apparently the veritable bee of Nature, will hover in the window,
and about the room. He will be with difficulty caught in the hand
of Monsieur the Ventriloquist – he will escape – he will again
hover – at length he will be recaptured by Monsieur the
Ventriloquist, and will be with difficulty put into a bottle.
Achieve then, Monsieur!’ Here the proprietor is replaced behind
the table by the Ventriloquist, who is thin and sallow, and of a
weakly aspect. While the bee is in progress, Monsieur the
Proprietor sits apart on a stool, immersed in dark and remote
thought. The moment the bee is bottled, he stalks forward, eyes us
gloomily as we applaud, and then announces, sternly waving his
hand: ‘The magnificent Experience of the child with the whoopingcough!’
The child disposed of, he starts up as before. ‘The
superb and extraordinary Experience of the dialogue between
Monsieur Tatambour in his dining-room, and his domestic, Jerome, in
the cellar; concluding with the songsters of the grove, and the
Concert of domestic Farm-yard animals.’ All this done, and well
done, Monsieur the Ventriloquist withdraws, and Monsieur the Face-
Maker bursts in, as if his retiring-room were a mile long instead
of a yard. A corpulent little man in a large white waistcoat, with
a comic countenance, and with a wig in his hand. Irreverent
disposition to laugh, instantly checked by the tremendous gravity
of the Face-Maker, who intimates in his bow that if we expect that
sort of thing we are mistaken. A very little shaving-glass with a
leg behind it is handed in, and placed on the table before the
Face-Maker. ‘Messieurs et Mesdames, with no other assistance than
this mirror and this wig, I shall have the honour of showing you a
thousand characters.’ As a preparation, the Face-Maker with both
hands gouges himself, and turns his mouth inside out. He then
becomes frightfully grave again, and says to the Proprietor, ‘I am
ready!’ Proprietor stalks forth from baleful reverie, and
announces ‘The Young Conscript!’ Face-Maker claps his wig on, hind
side before, looks in the glass, and appears above it as a
conscript so very imbecile, and squinting so extremely hard, that I
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Dickens, Charles – The Uncommercial Traveller
should think the State would never get any good of him. Thunders
of applause. Face-Maker dips behind the looking-glass, brings his
own hair forward, is himself again, is awfully grave. ‘A
distinguished inhabitant of the Faubourg St. Germain.’ Face-Maker
dips, rises, is supposed to be aged, blear-eyed, toothless,
slightly palsied, supernaturally polite, evidently of noble birth.
‘The oldest member of the Corps of Invalides on the fete-day of his
master.’ Face-Maker dips, rises, wears the wig on one side, has
become the feeblest military bore in existence, and (it is clear)
would lie frightfully about his past achievements, if he were not
confined to pantomime. ‘The Miser!’ Face-Maker dips, rises,
clutches a bag, and every hair of the wig is on end to express that
he lives in continual dread of thieves. ‘The Genius of France!’
Face-Maker dips, rises, wig pushed back and smoothed flat, little
cocked-hat (artfully concealed till now) put a-top of it, Face-
Maker’s white waistcoat much advanced, Face-Maker’s left hand in
bosom of white waistcoat, Face-Maker’s right hand behind his back.
Thunders. This is the first of three positions of the Genius of
France. In the second position, the Face-Maker takes snuff; in the
third, rolls up his fight hand, and surveys illimitable armies
through that pocket-glass. The Face-Maker then, by putting out his
tongue, and wearing the wig nohow in particular, becomes the
Village Idiot. The most remarkable feature in the whole of his
ingenious performance, is, that whatever he does to disguise