A corridor in the Palace. Night.

SCENE 1

PANTALONE and TARTAGLIA, meeting; both are in nightshirts and nightcaps, and each carries a lighted candle.

Pantalone. Where the devil have you been all this time?

Tartaglia. I've been—at the Cabinet.

Pant. And you never came to see that extraordinary sight! You're as constipated as a block of wood.

Tar. And I think you're just a schoolboy of seventy—a regular Venetian, always running after the last new sensation. I'm not interested in looking at monsters. If he'd broken his chain he might have torn you into shreds—just as I've been doing with the State papers.

Pant. You dear old cuckoo, you lost a tremendous occasion by not seeing the meeting of King Fanfur with the Monster, or his meeting with that jewel of an Achmed. They were great affairs, my dear colleague. I assure you, we were all of us in floods of tears.

Tar. Floods of tears? What on earth for?

Pant. First of all, you must know that the Monster has a name; he's called Zeloù.

Tar. Zeloù? Well, that seems more a thing to laugh at.

Pant. In the second place, he can talk; in fact he talks with all the eloquence of the Public Orator.

Tar. I must say, that's rather surprising; all the same, nothing to cry about. A bit of a bore, I should imagine. (Yawns)

Pant. Thirdly, King Fanfur decided that he was to have his head chopped off.

Tar. Ha! ha! ha! (Laughs uproariously) Well, that's really good news at last. His Majesty always does the right thing.

Pant. That's more than you do. If you had heard the speech that Zelou made to the King, you'd have wept like the rest of us.

Tar. Oh, (yawns) and may I ask what this – er – Zeloù did say to His Majesty? (Yawns)

Pant. Well now – er – what did he say? let me think – I shall remember directly – wait a moment – yes, I remember, yes, yes—