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.
With uncertain, questing finger We are getting on. Our company has been selected. We need only a handful of actors, but the manager has enlisted the street. The dearest little girl has been chosen for Betsy, and each day she practices her lullaby at the piano with uncertain, questing finger. A gentle rowdy of twelve will speak the Duke's blood-curdling lines. I understand that two quarrelsome pirates have nearly come to blows which shall act the captain. The hero, Red Joe, will be played by the manager himself, for it is he who owns the pistol. Is not the boy who has the baseball the captain of his nine?
I owe an apology to all the mothers of our cast; for the rough language of my lines outweighs their gentler home instruction. Whenever several of our actors meet there is used the vile language of the sea. By the bones of my ten fingers has replaced the anemic oaths of childhood. One little girl has been told she cries as easily as a crocodile. Another little girl was heard to say she would slit her sister's wisdom—a slip, no doubt, for wizen. And Blast my lamps! and Sink my timbers! are rolled profanely on the tongue.
In every attic on the street a rakish craft flies the skull and crossbones, and roves the Spanish Main on rainy afternoons. Innocent victims—girls, chiefly, who will tattle unless a horrid threat is laid upon them—are forced blindfold to walk the plank. If the wind blows, scratching the trees against the roof, it is, by their desire, a tempest whirling their stout ship upon the rocks. What ho! We split! Mysterious chalkings mark the cellar stairs and hint of treasure buried in the coal-hole. At every mirror pirates practice their cruel faces.
Innocent victims ... are forced blindfold to walk the plank
And now the daggers are complete, and their tip of blood has been squeezed from its twisted tube. Chests and neighbors have been rummaged for outlandish costumes. From the kindling-pile a predestined stick has become the timber leg of the wicked Duke. The butcher's hook has yielded to persuasion.
Presently rehearsals will begin—