d by, all hands,
to jump on the captain's tall hat. (He puts the hat down and prepares to
jump on it. The effect is startling, and takes him completely aback.
His followers, far from appreciating his iconoclasm, are shocked into
scandalized sobriety, except Redbrook, who is immensely tickled by their
prudery.)
DRINKWATER. Naow, look eah, kepn: that ynt rawt. Dror a lawn somewhere.
JOHNSON. I say nothin agen a bit of fun, Capn, but let's be gentlemen.
REDBROOK. I suggest to you, Brassbound, that the clobber belongs to Lady
Sis. Ain't you going to give it back to her?
BRASSBOUND (picking up the hat and brushing the dust off it anxiously).
That's true. I'm a fool. All the same, she shall not see me again like
this. (He pulls off the coat and waistcoat together.) Does any man here
know how to fold up this sort of thing properly?
REDBROOK. Allow me, governor. (He takes the coat and waistcoat to the
table, and folds them up.)
BRASSBOUND (loosening his collar and the front of his shirt).
Brandyfaced Jack: you're looking at these studs. I know what's in your
mind.
DRINKWATER (indignantly). Naow yer down't: nort a bit on it. Wot's in
maw mawnd is secrifawce, seolf-secrifawce.
BRASSBOUND. If one brass pin of that lady's property is missing, I'll
hang you with my own hands at the gaff of the Thanksgiving--and would,
if she were lying under the guns of all the fleets in Europe. (He pulls
off the shirt and stands in his blue jersey, with his hair ruffled. He
passes his hand through it and exclaims) Now I am half a man, at any
rate.
REDBROOK. A horrible combination, governor: churchwarden from the waist
down, and the rest pirate. Lady Sis won't speak to you in it.
BRASSBOUND. I'll change altogether. (He leaves the room to get his own
trousers.)
REDBROOK (softly). Look here, Johnson, and gents generally. (They gather
about him.) Spose she takes him back to England!
MARZO (trying to repeat his success). Im! Im only dam pirate. She saint,
I tell you--no take any man nowhere.
JOHNSON (severely). Don't you be a ignorant and immoral foreigner. (The
rebuke is well received; and Marzo is hustled into the background and
extinguished.) She won't take him for harm; but she might take him for
good. And then where should we be?
DRINKWATER. Brarsbahnd ynt the ownly kepn in the world. Wot mikes a kepn
is brines an knollidge o lawf. It ynt thet ther's naow sitch pusson:
it's thet you dunno where to look fr im. (The im
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