My preface outstays its time. Even as I write our audience has gathered. Limber folk in front squat on the floor. Bearded folk behind perch on chairs as on a balcony. Already, behind the scenes, the captain of the pirates has assumed his hook and villainous attire. Patch-Eye mumbles his lines against a loss of memory. Paint has daubed him to a rascal. The evil Duke limps for practice on his timber leg. Presently our curtain will rise. We shall see the pirate cabin, with the lighthouse blinking in the distance, the parrot, Flint's lantern and the ladder to the sleeping loft. We shall hear a storm unparalleled, like a tempest from the ocean—hissed through the teeth. We shall see the pirates in tattered costume and in pigtails made of stockings.
And now to bring this tedious explanation to a close, permit me to hush our orchestra for a final word. I have a most important announcement. It is the sum and essence of all these pages. This play of pirates—doctored somewhat with fiercer oaths and lengthened for older actors—this play and my other play of beggars I dedicate with my love to John Abram Flory, who, as Red Joe, was the most frightful pirate of them all.
ON CHOOSING A TITLE
I FIND difficulty in selecting a name for my pirate play. Children seem so easy in comparison—John or Gretchen, or Gwendolyn for parents of romantic taste. Gwendolyn I myself dislike, and I have thought I would give it to a cow if ever I owned a farm. But this is prejudice. To name a child, I repeat, one needs only to run his finger down the column of his acquaintance, or think which aunt will have the looser purse-strings in her will.
An unhappy choice, after all, is rare. Here and there a chocolate Pearl or a dusky crinkle-headed Blanche escapes our logic; but who can think of a sullen Nancy? Its very sound, tossed about the nursery, would brighten a maiden even if she were peevish at the start. I once knew an excellent couple of the name of Bottom, who chose Ruby for their offspring; but I have no doubt that the infelicity was altered at the font. The fact is that most of our names grow in time to fit our figure and our character. Margaret and Helen sound thin or fat, agreeable or dull, as our friends and neighbors rise before us; and any newcomer to our affection quickly erases the aspect of its former ugly tenant. I confess that till lately a certain name brought to my fancy a bouncing, red-armed creature; but that by a change of lease upon our street it has acquired an alien grace and beauty. Perhaps a scrawny neighbor by the name of Falstaff might remain inconsequent, but I am sure that if a lady called Messilina moved in next door and were of charming manner, a month would blur the bad suggestion of her name; which presently—if our gardens ran together—would come to sound sweetly in my ears.
But a play (more than a child or neighbor) is offered for a sudden judgment—to sink or swim upon a first impression—and its christening is an especial peril. I have fretted for a month to find a title for my comedy.
My first choice was A Frightful Play of Pirates. In the word frightful lay the double meaning that I wanted. It held up my hands, as it were, for mercy. It is an old device. Did not Keats, when a novice in his art, attempt by a modest preface to disarm the critics of his Endymion? "It is just," he wrote, "that this youngster should die away." Yet my title was too long. I could not hope, if my comedy reached the boards, that a manager could afford such a long display of electric lights above the door. It would require more than a barrel of lamps.