lieve
to weave with all their might.

"Is it not splendid!" said both the old statesmen. "See, your Majesty,
how fine is the texture! What remarkable colours!" And then they
pointed to the empty loom, believing that all but themselves could see
the cloth quite well.

"What is wrong?" thought the Emperor. "I can certainly see nothing!
This is indeed horrible! I must be stupid, or unfit to be Emperor! It
will never do to let it be known! Yes, it is indeed very beautiful,"
he said. "It has my entire approval."

And then he nodded pleasantly, and examined the empty loom with an
appearance of interest, for he would not admit that he could see
nothing.

His courtiers, too, looked and looked, and saw no more than the
others; but they said like the Emperor, "Oh! it is beautiful!"
Everyone seemed so delighted that the Emperor gave to the impostors
the title of Weavers to the Emperor.

Now there was to be a State procession the following week and
throughout the night before and the morning of the day on which this
was to take place the impostors were working by the light of many
candles. The people could see that they appeared to be busy putting
the finishing touches to the Emperor's new clothes. They pretended
that they were taking the cloth from the loom; they cut nothing with
huge scissors, sewed with needles without thread, and at last said,
"The clothes are finished!"

The Emperor came himself with his favourites and each impostor held up
his arms as if he were showing something and said, "See! here are the
breeches! Here is the coat! Here the cloak!" and so on.

"Our clothes are so comfortable that one might imagine one had nothing
on; that is the beauty of them!"

"Yes," nodded the courtiers, although they could see nothing, there
being nothing there.

"Will it please your Majesty graciously to disrobe," said the
impostors.

The Emperor took off all his clothes, and the men busied themselves as
if they were putting on various garments, while meantime the Emperor
surveyed himself in the mirror.

"How beautifully they fit! How well they suit his Majesty!" said
everybody.

"If it please your Majesty, the procession is ready," announced the
Master of the Ceremonies.

"I am ready," said the Emperor. And he turned again to the mirror as
if to take a last admiring view of his finery.

The courtiers whose duty it was to bear the Emperor's train put their
hands near the floor as if to lift the train; then they