more news of our romantic Emperor?

GEN. KOTEMK. You are quite right to call him romantic, Baron; a week ago
I found him amusing himself in a garret with a company of strolling
players; to-day his whim is all the convicts in Siberia are to be
recalled, and political prisoners, as he calls them, amnestied.

PRINCE PETRO. Political prisoners! Why, half of them are no better than
common murderers!

COUNT R. And the other half much worse?

BARON RAFF. Oh, you wrong them, surely, Count. Wholesale trade has
always been more respectable than retail.

COUNT R. But he is really too romantic. He objected yesterday to my
having the monopoly of the salt tax. He said the people had a right to
have cheap salt.

MARQ. DE POIV. Oh, that's nothing; but he actually disapproved of a
State banquet every night because there is a famine in the Southern
provinces. (_The young CZAR enters unobserved, and overhears the rest._)

PRINCE PETRO. Quelle betise! The more starvation there is among the
people, the better. It teaches them self-denial, an excellent virtue,
Baron, an excellent virtue.

BARON RAFF. I have often heard so; I have often heard so.

GEN. KOTEMK. He talked of a Parliament, too, in Russia, and said the
people should have deputies to represent them.

BARON RAFF. As if there was not enough brawling in the streets already,
but we must give the people a room to do it in. But, Messieurs, the
worst is yet to come. He threatens a complete reform in the public
service on the ground that the people are too heavily taxed.

MARQ. DE POIV. He can't be serious there. What is the use of the people
except[2] to get money out of? But talking of taxes, my dear Baron, you
must really let me have forty thousand roubles to-morrow? my wife says
she must have a new diamond bracelet.

COUNT R. (_aside to BARON RAFF_). Ah, to match the one Prince Paul gave
her last week, I suppose.

PRINCE PETRO. I must have sixty thousand roubles at once, Baron. My son
is overwhelmed with debts of honour which he can't pay.

BARON RAFF. What an excellent son to imitate his father so carefully!

GEN. KOTEMK. You are always getting money. I never get a single kopeck I
have not got a right to. It's unbearable; it's ridiculous! My nephew is
going to be married. I must get his dowry for him.

PRINCE PETRO. My dear General, your nephew must be a perfect Turk. He
seems to get married three times a week regularly.

GEN. KOT. Well, he wants a dowry to conso