Duke: What can she see in a young feller like that?
Darlin': Women 's queer folks. They 're wicious wampires. Jest yer watch 'em together. Red Joe 's snoopin' in on yer.
Duke: Yer can blast me. He ain 't got whiskers.
Darlin': I 'm tellin' yer, Duke. If I was you I 'd tumble that Red Joe off a cliff. I 'm hintin' to yer, Duke. Off a cliff! (She sniffs audibly.) It 's the pig. I clean fergot the pig. It 's burnin' on the fire. Off a cliff! I 'm hintin' to yer.
(She runs to the kitchen.)
Duke: Red Joe! Women 's queer—queerer than mermaids. A snooper! Jest a 'prentice pirate! No whiskers! Nothin'!
(At this moment there is a stamping of feet outside and Patch-Eye enters with Red Joe.
If Red Joe were born a gentleman we might expect silver buckles and a yellow feather to trail across his shoulder, for he bears a jaunty dignity. His is a careless grace—the swagger of a pleasant vagabond—a bravado that snaps its fingers at danger. His body has the quickness of a cat, his eye a flash of humor—kindly, unless necessity sharpens it. As poets were thick in those golden days we suspect that the roar of the ocean sets rhymes jingling in his heart. He is, however, almost as shabby as the other pirates, although he wears no pigtail. His collar is turned up. He wrings the water from his hat.
Patch-Eye throws himself on the seaman's chest and falls asleep at once. He snores an obligato to our scene. Just once an ugly dream disturbs him and we must fancy that a gibbet has crossed the frightful shadow of his thoughts.)
Duke: Evenin', ol' sea-serpent! Where has you been?