"I make the inquiry for the reason that I have just written a ballad which has for its hero a certain bold corsair. This is the first consequence of the death of our horse. In the exuberance of joy caused by that catastrophe, I felt as if I would like to perpetrate something which should be purely ridiculous, and accordingly I organized upon paper this piratical narrative. You think the subject is an odd one? Not so. I do not pretend to explain the fact, but it is true that by this generation a pirate is regarded as a comic personage. Perhaps the reason is that he has been so often presented to us in such a perfectly absurd form in melodrama and in the cheap and trashy novels of the day. At any rate, he is susceptible of humorous treatment, as you will perceive." [Illustration] "I have had a stronger impulse to write of buccaneers, too, because I am in New Castle; for, somehow, I always associate those freebooting individuals with this village. A certain ancestor of mine sailed away from this town in 1813, in a brig commissioned as a privateer, and played havoc with the ships of the enemy upon the Atlantic. In my childhood I used to hear of his brave deeds, and, somehow, I conceived the idea that he was a genuine pirate with a black flag, skull and cross-bones, and a disagreeable habit of compelling his captives to walk the plank. I was much more proud of him then, Mrs. Adeler, than I should be now had he really been such a ruffian. But he was not. He was a gallant sailor and a brave and honest gentleman, who served his country faithfully on the ocean, and then held a post of honor as warden of the port of Philadelphia until his death. But I never go to the river's side in New Castle without involuntarily recalling that fine old man in the character of an outlawed rover upon the high seas. "Here, my dear, is the ballad. When I have read it to you, I will send it to the _Argus_. Since Mr. Slimmer's retirement there has been a dearth of poetry in the columns of that great organ." MRS. JONES'S PIRATE. A sanguinary pirate sailed upon the Spanish main In a rakish-looking schooner which was called the "Mary Jane." She carried lots of howitzers and deadly rifled guns, With shot and shell and powder and percussion caps in tons. [Illustration] The pirate was a homely man, and short and grum and fat; He wore a wild and awful scowl beneath his slouching hat. Swords, pistols and stilettos were arranged around his thighs, And demoniacal glaring was quite common with his eyes. His heavy black moustaches curled away beneath his nose, And drooped in elegant festoons about his very toes. He hardly ever spoke at all; but when such was the case, His voice 'twas easy to perceive was quite a heavy bass.