When Frederic was a little boy, his nurse Ruth accidentally apprenticed him as a pirate, when he was supposed to have become a pilot. Though he loathes this profession, he is the slave of duty and vows to serve his apprenticeship to the orphan pirates to the end of its term. He falls in love with Mabel, one of the many wards of Major-General Stanley, a very model of a modern major-general. The pirates are threatening to marry all the girls and are only dissuaded by learning that the Major-General is also an orphan. The pirates, learning of a deception, once again seize the ladies who are finally saved by the police "in Queen Victoria's name". Ruth explains that the pirates are really "noblemen who have gone wrong", and they are finally permitted to marry the Major-General's wards.