(He leaves the room to get his
own trousers.)
REDBROOK (softly). Look here, Johnson, and gents generally. (They
gather about him.) Spose she takes him back to England!
MARZO (trying to repeat his success). Im! Im only dam pirate. She
saint, I tell you--no take any man nowhere.
JOHNSON (severely). Don't you be a ignorant and immoral foreigner.
(The rebuke is well received; and Marzo is hustled into the
background and extinguished.) She won't take him for harm; but she
might take him for good. And then where should we be?
DRINKWATER. Brarsbahnd ynt the ownly kepn in the world. Wot mikes
a kepn is brines an knollidge o lawf. It ynt thet ther's naow
sitch pusson: it's thet you dunno where to look fr im. (The
implication that he is such a person is so intolerable that they
receive it with a prolonged burst of booing.)
BRASSBOUND (returning in his own clothes, getting into his jacket
as he comes). Stand by, all. (They start asunder guiltily, and
wait for orders.) Redbrook: you pack that clobber in the lady's
portmanteau, and put it aboard the yacht for her. Johnson: you
take all hands aboard the Thanksgiving; look through the stores:
weigh anchor; and make all ready for sea. Then send Jack to wait
for me at the slip with a boat; and give me a gunfire for n
signal. Lose no time.
JOHNSON. Ay, ay, air. All aboard, mates.
ALL. Ay, ay. (They rush out tumultuously.)
When they are gone, Brassbound sits down at the end of the table,
with his elbows on it and his head on his fists, gloomily
thinking.
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