Maybe there is some regional variation in how unambiguous this construct is. I can easily interpret your final sentence, "Eats, shoots and leaves," as saying that "eats" (n) are shoots (as in bamboo shoots) and edible leaves.
If you initially parse everything after the comma as the aside, you then have only the fact that "two onlookers" is not something that George coul be to allow you to understand the sentence.