Chapter VII: Act II: Scene, the Quarries, with convicts at work. They make

elaborate motions with picks at white rocks, and thus dig out considerable black slate. SILAS has become a Warden, no one knows how. The convicts sing and enjoy themselves, with the exception of ARNOLD, who evidently finds prison life too gay and frivolous. Mrs. ARMITAGE, who has become a fashionable lady--no one knows how-enters with a procession of nice girls to watch the joyous prisoners. A COMIC CONVICT, with a fine sense of the fun of the thing, proposes a mutiny. Convicts all mutiny, and ARNOLD and his comic friend escape. They take refuge in a busy highway, and the COMIC CONVICT sings comic songs in order to prevent the police from approaching them. The police--having some little musical taste, wisely keep at a distance. The two convicts rob a drunken soldier of his uniform, and, disguised as officers, go to India. The drunken soldier is arrested as an escaped convict and dragged to prison. The entire population of Great Britain embark for India in a neat pasteboard steamer. Exasperating drums beat until the audience becomes too much confused to notice the astounding evolutions of the military. After a few hours of this sort of thing some intelligent carpenter mutinies and drops the curtain.

_Everybody in the audience_. "I don't begin to see into this plot yet, but we shall in time."