Come, of your Buttercup buy!

BOAT. Aye, Little Buttercup--and well called--for you're the
rosiest,
the roundest, and the reddest beauty in all Spithead.
BUT. Red, am I? and round--and rosy! Maybe, for I have
dissembled well!
But hark ye, my merry friend--hast ever thought that beneath a
gay and
frivolous exterior there may lurk a canker-worm which is slowly
but
surely eating its way into one's very heart?

BOAT. No, my lass, I can't say I've ever thought that.

Enter DICK DEADEYE. He pushes through sailors, and comes down

DICK. I have thought it often. (All recoil from him.)
BUT. Yes, you look like it! What's the matter with the man?
Isn't he
well?
BOAT. Don't take no heed of him; that's only poor Dick Deadeye.
DICK. I say--it's a beast of a name, ain't it--Dick Deadeye?
BUT. It's not a nice name.
DICK. I'm ugly too, ain't I?
BUT. You are certainly plain.
DICK. And I'm three-cornered too, ain't I?
BUT. You are rather triangular.
DICK. Ha! ha! That's it. I'm ugly, and they hate me for it; for
you all
hate me, don't you?
ALL. We do!
DICK. There!
BOAT. Well, Dick, we wouldn't go for to hurt any fellow
creature's
feelings, but you can't expect a chap with such a name as Dick
Deadeye to
be a popular character--now can you?
DICK. No.
BOAT. It's asking too much, ain't it?
DICK. It is. From such a face and form as mine the noblest
sentiments
sound like the black utterances of a depraved imagination It is
human
nature--I am resigned.

RECITATIVE

BUT. (looking down hatchway).
But, tell me--who's the youth whose faltering feet
With difficulty bear him on his course?
BOAT. That is the smartest lad in all the fleet--
Ralph Rackstraw!
BUT. Ha! That name! Remorse! remorse!

Enter RALPH from hatchway

MADRIGAL--RALPH

The Nightingale
Sighed for the moon's bright ray
And told his tale
In his own melodious way!
He sang "Ah, well-a-day!"

ALL. He sang "Ah, well-a-day!"
The lowly vale
For the mountain vainly sighed,
To his