Excellent! You will have your chaperone, and I will be rid of the most dangerous Anti-suffra-gette! Seek her and seize her!

All. We go! We go! (exit all, left, except PAULINE) (enter GRANDMA GREGG, right)

GRANDMA. I thought I heard a noise, Pauline. How are the dear girls getting on with their lessons?

PAULINE, (curtseys) Fine, mam. They're learning new tricks every day.

GRANDMA. (picking up dummy and laying it over chair back) Very good. But I wouldn't wear a bandeau on my hair if I were you, Pauline. I don't like these ribbons bound around the head of young girls. They make them look like pirates. (PAULINE starts uneasily)

PAULINE. Pirates, mam? What a notion!

GRANDMA. Pirates, or Italian ditch diggers.

PAULINE, (boldly) Well, mam, let it be pirates, then. Pirate is what I am. (hesitates) Grandma Gregg, you've always been good to me, barring the scrubbing and mopping and blacking shoes and stoves. If I was you, mam, I'd pack some clothes, so as to be ready for the sea voyage.

GRANDMA. Me? A sea voyage?

PAULINE. Yes'm. (curtseys) This Susan Jane Jones is not what she seems, mam. I let on, mam, I was of her way of thinking, mam, but I ain't. A husband is good enough woman's rights for me, mam. A nice, quiet, well-behaved husband like that one there is all I want.

GRANDMA. I don't understand you.

PAULINE. Susan Jane Jones is a Militant Suffragette, mam.

GRANDMA. A Militant Suffragette? In this academy?

PAULINE. Yes, mam. (curtseys) She's here like a snake in the grass, mam, and her and the young ladies is goin' to extinguish all the men. They're all goin' to be pirates, mam, and most bloody minded pirates they be, too. And you, mam, that never did them any harm, they are going to capture and take along with them in chains. For a chaperone, mam.

GRANDMA, (hanging her head) And is this the reward for my efforts to make good wives of them!

(Enter SUSAN cautiously. She beckons to the girls.)

SUSAN. This way! She's here!

(The girls creep in, knives in their teeth, swaggering like story-book pirates. SUSAN folds her arms.)

SUSAN. Woman! Your hour has come!

GRANDMA. Well, I do declare!

SUSAN. These poor maidens you thought to corrupt into housework ways, I have won from you. Here, to-day, the revolution that will sweep the men from the land and sea, begins! We are resolved! ALL. (shouting) We are resolved!

SUSAN. In these hearts burns nothing but hatred and detestation of man.

ALL. (shouting) Hatred and detestation.

KATE. We don't want to have anything more to do with men.

GRACE. We are absolutely through with them. And with boys, too.

GRANDMA. Now, my dears—

SUSAN. Enough! Pirates, do your duty! Seize that man! (two girls seize and bind the dummy)

SUSAN. Ha! Ha! Now seize and bind and gag that woman, (points to GRANDMA. The girls rush at GRANDMA, who skips backward)

SUSAN, (front, rubbing her hands with joy) pirates! My faithful band of man-haters, (to audience) You men, your turn is next!

A BOY'S VOICE. (off stage) OO-oo!

(KATE, who it about to bind GRANDMA, stops and listens.)

KATE That's John!

SECOND BOY'S VOICE. (off stage) Oo-oo! Oo-oo!)

GRACE. (listening) That's—that's Arthur!

SEVERAL BOY'S VOICES. Oo-oo! Oo-Oo! Oo-oo!

EDITH, IDA and Mat. That's Sam! That's George! That's Henry! (all crowd to door and look out)

KATE. (eagerly) Oh, girls! It's the boys, they want us to come out! Where's my hat?

(All rush in a crowd to sofa and begin digging wildly into wraps and hats, putting them on as hastily as possible)

SUSAN. Girls! Pirates! Stop! The revolution! Remember your cause!

KATE. (pinning on her hat) Revolution! I haven't time