Punch/Volume 147/Issue 3811/Once Upon a Time
Transmigration.
Once upon a time there was an ostrich who, though very ostrichy, was even more of an egoist. He thought only of himself. That is not a foible peculiar to ostriches, but this particular fowl—and he was very particular—was notable for it. "Where do I come in?" was a question written all over him—from his ridiculous and inadequate head, down his long neck, on his plump fluffy body, and so to his exceedingly flat and over-sized feet.
It was in Afric's burning sand—to be precise, at the Cape—that, on the approach of danger, the ostrich secreted his self-centred head, and here from time to time his plumes were plucked from him for purposes of trade.
Now it happened that in London there was a theatre given up to a season of foreign opera, and, this theatre having been built by one of those gifted geniuses so common among theatre architects, it followed that the balcony (into which, of course, neither the architect nor the manager for whom it was built had ever strayed) contained a number of seats from which no view of the stage was visible at all—unless one stood up, and then the people behind were deprived of their view. This, of course, means nothing to architects or managers. The thought that jolly anticipatory parties of simple folk bent upon a happy evening may be depressed and dashed by a position suffering from such disabilities could not concern architects and managers, for some imagination would be needed to understand it.
The new temporary management, however (whatever the ordinary management might do), recognising the rights of the spectator, refrained from selling any seats from which no view whatever could be obtained and behaved very well about it—as perhaps one has to do when half-a-guinea is charged for each seat; but with the border-line seats which they did sell—those on the confines of the possible area—a view of the stage was only partial and so much a matter of touch-and-go that any undue craning of the neck or moving of the head sideways at once interrupted the line of vision of many worthy folk at the back; while anyone leaning too far forward from a seat in the front row could instantly, for many others, obliterate the whole stage.
It happened that on a certain very hot night in July a fat lady in one of the front seats not only leaned forward but fanned herself intermittently with a large fan.
Now and then one of the unfortunate half-guinea seat-holders behind her in the debatable territory remonstrated gently and politely, remarking on the privation her fan was causing to others, and each time the lady smiled and said she was very sorry and put the fan down; but in two minutes she was fluttering it again as hard as ever, and not a vestige of the Pentateuchal caperings or whatever was going forward could be discerned in her vicinity.
She meant well, poor lady; but it was very hot, and how could she help it when her fan was made of that particular ostrich's feathers?