Party gawn to the jail to fetch em, marm.
LADY CICELY. Thank you. I should like to be told when they are
coming, if I might.
BLUEJACKET. You shall so, marm. (He stands aside, saluting, to
admit his captain, and goes out.)
Captain Hamlin Kearney is a robustly built western American, with
the keen, squeezed, wind beaten eyes and obstinately enduring
mouth of his profession. A curious ethnological specimen, with all
the nations of the old world at war in his veins, he is developing
artificially in the direction of sleekness and culture under the
restraints of an overwhelming dread of European criticism, and
climatically in the direction of the indiginous North American,
who is already in possession of his hair, his cheekbones, and the
manlier instincts in him, which the sea has rescued from
civilization. The world, pondering on the great part of its own
future which is in his hands, contemplates him with wonder as to
what the devil he will evolve into in another century or two.
Meanwhile he presents himself to Lady Cicely as a blunt sailor who
has something to say to her concerning her conduct which he wishes
to put politely, as becomes an officer addressing a lady, but also
with an emphatically implied rebuke, as an American addressing an
English person who has taken a liberty.
LADY CICELY (as he enters). So glad you've come, Captain Kearney.
KEARNEY (coming between Sir Howard and Lady Cicely).
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