nothin' from Patch"]

PATCH: Yer hurts me feelin's, Duke.

DUKE: Somethin' 's wrong. Somethin' 's wrong with Red Joe.

PATCH: Red Joe 's a right smart feller, I says.

CAPTAIN: He can shoot as straight as ol' Flint. Barin' meself, Joe 's
as straight a shot as I 've seen in many a year. Patch, agin him, is
jest a crooked stick.

PATCH: Pick on the Duke jest once, why does n't yer?

DUKE: Ease off, mates! Red Joe ain 't goin' ter hang on no gibbet.
'Cause why? 'Cause I 'm tellin' yer. I 'll tell yer what the ol' lady
seen in the glass.

(_Once more the Duke draws the pirates around him. He is Guy Faux and
the wicked Bothwell rolled together._)

CAPTAIN: We 're listenin', Duke.

PATCH: Like kittens at a mouse-hole.

DUKE: Captain, it 's deuced strange that Red Joe's ship--nary a stick
o' her--never come ter shore. Does yer remember a wreck 'long here
where nothin' washed ter shore?

CAPTAIN: Yer right, Duke. I never did.

DUKE: Does you remember one, stoopid?

PATCH: I does n't remember one this minute, Duke.

DUKE: Ol' Flint, he had a pigtail, did n't he? And you 've a pigtail,
Captain, has n't yer? And Patch-Eye, he 's got what he calls a
pigtail.

CAPTAIN: Spinach, I calls it.

DUKE: And ol' Pew, he 'd got a pigtail, ain 't he? And every blessed
man as sailed with him. I 'm tellin' yer, Captain.

PATCH: The sea-cook, he did n't have one.

DUKE: Sea-cooks ain 't sailormen. They 're swabs. Jest indoor swabs.
Did yer ever see a pirate snipped all 'round like a landlubber, with
nary a whisp behind?

CAPTAIN: Yer can rot me keel, Duke, I never did.

PATCH: I agrees with the Captain.

DUKE: Red Joe, he ain 't got a pigtail.

CAPTAIN: No more he ain 't.

PATCH: Was n't it Noah, Captain; as got his pigtail cut by some
designin' woman? Does yer think Red Joe 's gone and met a schemin'
wixen?

CAPTAIN: I scorns yer igerence. Yer thinks o' Jonah.

DUKE: Well? Well? I 've told yer Red Joe ain 't got a pigtail. Does
n't yer smell anythin'?

CAPTAIN: (_as he turns his head and sniffs audibly_). I can 't say as
I sniffs nothin'--leastways, nothin' perticerler. I smells a bit o'
grog, perhaps.

PATCH: I gets a whiff o' garlic from the kitchen.

DUKE: The two o' yer never can smell nothin' when there 's garlic or
grog around. I 'm askin' yer pardon, Captain. Does Red Joe talk like a
pirate? Sink me, he can 't rip an oath. Did yer ever know a pirate
which could n't talk fluent?

CAPTAIN: What 's b