[_Enter HERALDS and ADVANCE GUARDS of the KING_]
FIRST HERALD. Stand off! Get away from the street, all of you!
FIRST CITIZEN. Eh, man, who do you think you are? You weren’t of course born with such lofty strides, my friend?—Why should we stand off, my dear sir? Why should we budge? Are we street dogs, or what?
SECOND HERALD. Our King is coming this way.
FIRST HERALD. Our King, the King of this country.
FIRST CITIZEN. What, is the fellow mad? Whoever heard of our King coming out heralded by these vociferous gentry?
SECOND HERALD. The King will no longer deny himself to his subjects. He is coming to command the festivities himself.
SECOND HERALD. Look, his banner is flying over there.
SECOND CITIZEN. Ah, yes, that is a flag indeed.
SECOND HERALD. Do you see the red _Kimshuk_ flower painted on it?
SECOND CITIZEN. Yes, yes, it is the _Kimshuk_ indeed!—what a bright scarlet flower!
FIRST HERALD. Well! do you believe us now?
SECOND CITIZEN. I never said I didn’t. That fellow Kumbha started all this fuss. Did I say a word?
FIRST HERALD. Perhaps, though a pot-bellied man, he is quite empty inside; an empty vessel sounds most, you know.
SECOND HERALD. Who is he? Is he any kinsman of yours?
SECOND CITIZEN. Not at all. He is just a cousin of our village chief’s father-in-law, and he does not even live in the same part of our village with us.
SECOND HERALD. Just so: he quite looks the seventh cousin of somebody’s father-in-law, and his understanding appears also to bear the stamp of uncle-in-lawhood.
KUMBHA. Alas, my friends, many a bitter sorrow has given my poor mind a twist before it has become like this. It is only the other day that a King came and paraded the streets, with as many titles in front of him as the drums that made the town hideous by their din, . . . What did I not do to serve and please him! I rained presents on him, I hung about him like a beggar—and in the end I found the strain on my resources too hard to bear. But what was the end of all that pomp and majesty? When people sought grants and presents from him, he could not somehow discover an auspicious day in the Calendar: though all days were red-letter days when we had to pay our taxes!
SECOND HERALD. Do you mean to insinuate that our King is a bogus King like the one you have described?
