They don't commemorate poor folk with all
these fal-lals and follies.

_1st Lab._ Well, citizen, there is one comfort--the great people
don't enjoy themselves as we do. Did you ever see such a set of
melancholy, frowning, anxious faces as the grandees carried with them
to-day? And as for the Prince and the Lady Gycia, I don't believe
they spoke a word the livelong day, though they walked together. That
is the way with these grandees. When you and I quarrel with our
wives, it is hammer and tongs for five minutes, and then kiss and
make friends.

_2nd Lab._ And fancy being drilled by that old fool from
Bosphorus--"Most Illustrious, this is your proper place;"
"Respectable sir, get you back there" (_mimics_ MEGACLES), and so
forth.

_1st Lab._ Well, well, it is good to be content. But I warrant we are
the only two unhappy creatures in Cherson to-night, who have the ill
fortune to be sober. And such wine too, and nothing to pay!

_2nd Lab._ Never mind, citizen, we shall be paid in meal or malt, I
dare say, and we are bound to keep sober. By the way, it is a
curiously contrived bonfire this.

_1st Lab._ It will be the crowning triumph of the whole festival, the
senator said.

_2nd Lab._ But who ever heard of a bonfire on a large scale like
this, so close to an old building? You know our orders: we are to
place lines of faggots and straw close to the building on every
side, well soaked with oil, and certain sealed vessels full of a
secret compound in the midst of them. And just before midnight we are
to run with torches and set light to the whole bonfire, to amuse the
noble guests at the banquet.

[IRENE _at a window, overhearing._

_1st Lab._ Ah! do you not see? It is a device of the Senate to
startle our friends from Bosphorus. The faggots and straw blaze up
fiercely round the wall; then, when all is confusion, the substance
in the sealed vessels escapes and at once puts out the fire, and the
laugh is with us. Our friends from Bosphorus know what we can do in
chemistry before now.

_2nd Lab._ Faith, a right merry device! Ha! ha! What a head thou
hast, citizen! Well, we must go on with our work. Lay the faggots
evenly.

_Ire. (at the window above)._ Great God! what is this?
We are doomed to die!
Good friends,
Know you my brother, the Lord Theodorus?
I have something urgent I would say to him.
I will write it down, and you shall give it him
When he comes forth from the banquet.

[_Disa