Page:Pirates of Penzance (Hitchcock publication).djvu/10



Yes, Frederic, from to-day you rank as a full-blown member of our band.

Hurrah!

My friends, I thank you all, from my heart, for your kindly wishes. Would that I could repay them as they deserve!

What do you mean?

To-day I am out of my indentures, and to-day I leave you for ever.

Leave us?

For ever!

But this is quite unaccountable. A keener hand at scuttling a Cunarder or cutting out a White Star never shipped a handspike.

Yes, I have done my best for you. And why? It was my duty under my indentures, and I am the slave of duty. As a child I was regularly apprenticed to your band. It was through an error. No matter, the mistake was ours, not yours, and I was in honor bound by it.

An error? What error?

I may not tell you. It would reflect upon my well-loved Ruth.

Nay, dear master, my mind has long been gnawed by the cankering tooth of mystery. Better have it out at once.

When Frederic was a little lad he proved so brave and daring His father thought he'd 'prentice him to some career seafaring. I was, alas! his nursery-maid, and so it fell to my lot To take and bind this promising boy apprentice to a pilot.
 * A life not bad for a hardy lad, though certainly not a high lot;
 * Though I'm a nurse, you might do worse than make your boy a pilot.

I was a stupid nursery-maid, on breakers always steering, And I did not catch the word aright, through being hard of hearing. Mistaking my instructions, which within my brain did gyrate. I took and bound this promising boy apprentice to a pirate.
 * A sad mistake it was to make, and doom him to a vile lot:
 * I bound him to a pirate—you—instead of to a pilot!