P. Performer. F. Figure. S.D. Small Doll.
F. "I'm leaving school tomorrow."
P. "That's funny. I saw your headmaster to-day and he never mentioned
it."
F. "He doesn't know yet."
P. (with heavy sarcasm) "I see. You haven't taken him into your
confidence."
F. "He doesn't take me into his, so why should I take him into mine."
P. "And what do you think is going to happen to you when you keave
school? How will you earn a living?"
F. "I'm going to be a ventriloquist. It's easy and honest." (steals
a quick look at P) "Or nearly. I've been learning to throw my voice - without
moving my lips. I was wondering whether you'd let me do a bit. I've got
a dummy. It's there."
(P. takes Small Doll and fixes it on Figure, talking the while to
the latter.)
P. "All right. But I shall watch you closely. Now go ahead."
F. (shouting to S.D.) "Oy!"
P. "Don't shout like that. Speak nicely to him."
F. "Like you do to me?" (to S.D.) "What's your name?"
S.D. (in clear, small voice) "Fitzgerald."
F. "Why do they call you Fitzgerald?"
S.D. " 'Cos what fits me fits Gerald."
F. (to P.) "Proper sissy, isn't he?"
P. "ou mustn't talk that way."
F. (to S.D.) "What are you learning at school?"
S.D. "My alphabet."
P. "I'd like to hear you say it."
F. "So would I." (to S.D.) "Go on, then. Mind, all the difficult letters."
(to P.) "And you can look at me and you won't see my lips move."
S.D. "A." (slight pause) "A -"
F. "What comes after A?"
S.D. "All the other letters."
P. "Now go right through from A to Z."
S.D. (recites alphabet slowly from A to P) "...P -"
F. "That's the difficult one - P." (to S.D.) "Go on."
S.D. (finishes alphabet.)
F. (triumphantly) "There you are. Twenty-six of them. And I
can say something no other ventriloquist can say."
P. (deprecatingly) "I'm glad you're so modest."
F. (to S.D.) "Go on, Fitz."
S.D. (recites a tongue-twister), such as: -
"He was a thistle sifter,(P. unhooks S.D. and replaces it in former attitude while audience applauds.)
He sifted a sieve of sifted thistles
And a sieve of unsifted thistles,
He was a thistle sifter."
or
"Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppercorns.
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppercorns,
Where are the peppercorns that Peter Piper picked?"
or
"On two thousand acres too tangled for tilling,
Where thousands of thorn trees grew thrifty and thrilling,
Theophilus Twistle, less thrifty than some,
Thrust three thousand thistles through the thick of his thumb."
(Business follows here with P. placing F. in case as described elsewhere in this book.)
Douglas Craggs, A.B.C. of Ventriloquism: With An Appendix of Ventriloquial Dialogues and Patter (London: Academy of Recorded Crafts, Arts and Sciences, 1944), pp. 43-4