ABSTRACT
I WAS walking down the Strand one foggy November evening some sixteen years ago with that charming companion, genial wit, and thorough gentleman, the late Francis Talfourd, when he suddenly stopped short opposite the can of a peripatetic hot-potato-man and taking a long “sniff” observed, “Ha-ah, that potato-can smells deliciously, it smells just like the Pantomimes.” There was no doubt about it, something had gone wrong with the interior of the “can,” and the odour it emitted was suggestive of a Pantomime. To any one who asks me what a pantomime “smells like” I should reply it includes a touch of gas, a soupçon of orange-peel, a dash of red fire, and a decided flavour of exploded crackers. Any one in the habit of going to the play will recognise this unsavoury but (to a boy) most attractive combination; and as for the man who has forgotten his first sniff of Astley’s, he is simply unworthy the consideration of his fellow-creatures.
