Chapter II: Act II

SCENE I.--_O'Malley's ancestral back-garret. Enter Tragic Heroine in ball-dress, having swum across the bay._

TRAGIC HEROINE.--"Ha! also Ho! I am a little out of breath. I think I had better faint." _(Faints.) [Enter O'Malley and his rescued enemies.]_

O'MALLEY.--"Sit down, while I go for the whiskey." _[He goes.]_

O'HARA.--"What do I see? My daughter! Take her up-stairs before O'MALLEY returns." _(They take her up.) [Re-enter O'Malley.]_

O'MALLEY.--"Gentlemen, here is the whiskey. It is Gen. GRANT'S favorite brand, and you'll find it all right." _[To his servant]_ "CONNER, these men mean to arrest me. Go and set fire to the castle." _[Connor goes, and O'Malley, locking the door, throws the key out of the window.]_

EVERYBODY.--"What do you mean by throwing away the key? Do you mean to surround us, and, making us prisoners, drink up the whiskey yourself?"

O'MALLEY,--"'Tis a custom of our house, intended originally to give employment to meritorious locksmiths on the eve of election. Listen while I tell you how one of my ancestors played a nice little trick on some officers who had come to arrest him for shooting his landlord. He locked them up as I have locked you up. He then ordered his servant to set the castle on fire as I have just done, and was baked with them as we are about to be baked."

DUTCH GENERAL.--"Donner und blitzen!"

EVERYBODY ELSE.--"Tare an ounds!"

TRAGIC HEROINE, _[in the loft above]_.--"S c r r r e e e c h."

O'MALLEY.--"Heavings! That shriek. 'Tis my Grace! TRAGIC DARLING, I come to die with you." _[Rushes up the chimney, while the Dutch General, blowing off the lock off the door with his pistol, escapes together with his friends. The Castle is carefully taken to pieces in sections by the stage carpenters, while torches are flashed at intervals. Finally a Roman candle is set off, and the O'Malley Castle falls a prey to a carefully managed conflagration.--Curtain.]_