“Aby, look, over there, past the elephant. It’s Punch and Judy!”
“But, Helly, the cotton candy is here….“
“C’mon!”
Helly had her way; like mother like daughter. Our group manouvered through the approving throng, ruddy hands linked, toward the puppet booth. There was Punch, with his outrageous warted nose, his fool’s cap and his bumpy club, screaming: to be let alone, to be given kisses, to get away with his witless mischiefs.
“Observe this miscreant pair of Punch and Judy, my little ones. See how Judy chases Punch with her whacking bladder? And note how offended Punch’s sense of justice is, how wounded his mein becomes. But where are the gendarmes? The magistrates to adjudicate? This game of tit-for-tat is a laugh riot, but only because of this sad truth: punches without justice yeild nothing but agony and hilarity. And platitudes, too, perhaps. But not much else.”
I thought for a moment of the Baudelaire case my team was prosecuting on the morrow. No matter how I proceeded, I would look like a dupe. Either in liscencious league with a polluter of public morality, or else a whip-whetting Philistine who punished innocent pursuers and purveyors of pristine Art. Art, in Paris, is always capitalized.
“Wow! Look at him run!” squealed little Aby. His eyes were festive with youthful delight.
“He better run if he don’t want a whack,” said Helly with authority.
Helly glanced up at me appraisingly, slyly. She whacked Aby with her ornate silk purse full of marbles and laughed, her eyes wide.
“Hey! Daddy, Helly hit me.”
“There is no justice in this world, my son. Hit her back.”
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