The boys discuss the news, and at last one of them bursts into a fit of laughter after having opened the paper. The others crowd round to see what is causing the merriment.
Laughingly he explains that it is not an account of an exciting piratical affair, but merely the report of the capture of a Baronetcy in England by a fair cousin from the United States.
Beanstalk
First Syllable.
BEAN.
Scene.—Widow Frankey’s kitchen. Representation of this made by use of window described [above], kitchen table and chairs, plates, pastry board, &c.
Widow Frankey, in apron and cap, is busy making pastry, and talking to herself about her son Jack, and wondering when he will return from the errand on which she has sent him.
Jack appears. Tells his mother where he has been, and she scolds him for being so slow.
He goes out in a temper, and Widow Frankey leaves her work, sits down and cries, finally falling asleep.
Jack returns, finds his mother asleep, and determines to make up for his ill-temper by finishing the pudding she has already begun.
(An amusing scene can be shown here by the funny mistakes he makes, putting into the pudding all kinds of odd ingredients, amongst them a bean.)