for the thunder
storm, and I have suggested that he dig in a nearby gravel pit for a
basket of rain to hurl against the pirates' window. But hard beans, he
says, are better, and he has won the cook's consent. For the slow
monotone of water dripping from the roof in our second act, a single
bean, he tells me, dropped gently in a pan is a baffling counterfeit.

The lightning seems not to bother him, for he owns a pocket
flashlight; but the mighty wind that comes brawling from the ocean was
at first a sticker. The vacuum cleaner popped into his head, but was
put aside. The fireplace bellows were too feeble for any wind that had
grown a beard. His manager of finance, however, laid aside his book
one night--a weary tract upon the law--and displayed an ability to
moan and whistle through his teeth. The very casement rattled in the
blast. He has agreed to sit in the wings and loose a sufficient storm
upon a given signal.

Our stage is cramped. Three strides stretch from side to side. "Can
this cockpit" you ask, "hold the vasty fields of France?" It is not,
of course, the vasty fields of France that we are trying to hold; but
we do lack space for the kind of riot the manager has in mind in the
final scene. He wants nothing girlish. Sabers and pistols are his
demand--a knife between the teeth--and more yelling than I could
possibly put down in print. A bench must be upset, the beer-cask
overturned, a jug of Darlin's grog spilled, and one stool, at least,
must be smashed--preferably on the captain's head, who must, however,
be consulted. Patch-Eye and the Duke are not the kind of pirates that
lie down and whine for mercy at a single punch.

At first our manager was baffled how the pirates were to ascend a
ladder to their sleeping loft. They had no place to go. They would
crack their ugly heads upon the ceiling. The costumer was positive
(parsimony!) that a hole--even a little hole--should not be cut in the
plaster overhead for their disappearance. If the chandelier had been
an honest piece of metal they might have perched on it until the act
ran out. Or perhaps the candles could be extinguished when their legs
were still climbing visibly. At last the manager has contrived that a
plank be laid across the tops of two step-ladders, behind a drop so
that the audience cannot see. No reasonable pirate could refuse to
squat upon the plank until the curtain fell.

[Illustration: With uncertain, questing finger]

We are getting on.