uttin' in the garden.

CAPTAIN: King, I asks yer ter cast yer gig on me. I 'd be a right
smart Archbishop o' Canterbury. Me whiskers is 'clesiastical.

DUKE: I offers meself, King, as Lord 'Igh Admiral o' the Navy. I
swears fluent.

DARLIN': Has yer a Princess vacant? I lolls graceful on a throne.
(_The horrid creature spits._)

CAPTAIN: 'Vast there, me hearties! I 'm thinkin' I 'm hearin' the
sound o' footsteps.

DUKE: (_to Patch_). Did yer lordship hear any sound?

PATCH: Askin' your Grice's pardon, I did n't ketch a thing. Did you
hear anythin', Princess?

DARLIN': There 's nothin' come ter me pearly ears.

CAPTAIN: Silence! I wants ter listen.

(_No sound is heard._)

CAPTAIN: Well, Patch, yer had better get yer dirk ready. I 'm uncommon
sleepy. I wants ter get ter bed.

DARLIN': Ketch him a deep one, Patch.

PATCH: I takes it mighty kind o' you, Captain. Yer has alers been a
lovin' father ter me. Joey, I 'll tell yer what yer are. Yer the kind
o' feller I hates most perticerler. Yer a spy! Say yer prayers, you
hissin' snake!

(_He sharpens his dirk and gayly tests it on his whiskers._)

JOE: My wasted day is done. In the tempest's wrack the stars are dim
and faith 's the only compass. Now or hereafter, what matters it? The
sun will gild the meadows as of yesteryear. The moon will fee the
world with silver coin. And all across the earth men will traffic on
their little errands until nature calls them home. I am a stone cast
in a windy pool where scarce a ripple shows. Life 's but a candle in
the wind. Mine will not burn to socket.

DUKE: He 's all wound up like a clock--jest tickin' words.

CAPTAIN: Patch, Joe is tellin' us poetical that his wick has burned
right down to the bottle. Yer had better put it out, without more
hesitatin'.

(_And now, as they are intent for the coming blow--suddenly!
quietly!--a woman's hand and arm--a claw, rather, with long, thin,
shrivelled fingers--have come in sight at the window with the broken
glass._

_It quite terrifies me as I write. My pencil shakes. Old ladies will
want to scream._

_The fingers grope along the sill. They fumble on the wall. They
stretch to reach the gun which stands beside the clock. Another inch
and they will grasp it and Red Joe will be saved. The arm rubs against
the pendulum of the clock. It swings and the clock starts to tick. And
still no one has seen the terrible hand. And now the fingers are
thrust blindly against the gun. I