MABEL: Sergeant, approach! Young Frederic was to have led you to death and glory. POLICE: That is not a pleasant way of putting it. MABEL: No matter; he will not so lead you, for he has allied himself once more with his old associates. POLICE: He has acted shamefully! MABEL: You speak falsely. You know nothing about it. He has acted nobly. POLICE: He has acted nobly! MABEL: Dearly as I loved him before, his heroic sacrifice to his sense of duty has endeared him to me tenfold; but if it was his duty to constitute himself my foe, it is likewise my duty to regard him in that light. He has done his duty. I will do mine. Go ye and do yours. (Exit MABEL) POLICE: Right oh! SERGEANT: This is perplexing. POLICE: We cannot understand it at all. SERGEANT: Still, as he is actuated by a sense of duty— POLICE: That makes a difference, of course. At the same time, we repeat, we cannot understand it at all. SERGEANT: No matter. Our course is clear: we must do our best to capture these pirates alone. It is most distressing to us to be the agents whereby our erring fellow- creatures are deprived of that liberty which is so dear to us all— but we should have thought of that before we joined the force. POLICE: We should! SERGEANT: It is too late now! POLICE: It is! SOLO AND CHORUS