WILLIAM TELL. 29
And thou, vile post! I’ll smash thee all to shivery :
All Switzerland shall bless this Post Delivery.

[He rushes to the side, and fetches an axe, with which he
chops the pole down. Great confusion—which may be
taken advantage of, by any wag in the audience, to make
a joke about the Pole being one of the Distressed Poles.

 

Thus would that I could make the Austrian thieves
Cut all their sticks, and never axe their leaves.
A 21. (Coming forward.) He’s broke the whole on’t! let alone the
peace.
A voice within me calls “ Police!” “ Police!”
True as the needle to yon pole, I’ll boast—
A—Twenty-one—would not desert his post.

[He springs his rattle. POLICEMEN appear from the neigh-

bouring kitchens, and surround TELL.