OPENING CHORUS.

In lazy languor—motionless,
We lie and dream of nothingness;
For visions come
From Poppydom
Direct at our command:
Or, delicate alternative,
In open idleness we live,
With lyre and lute
And silver flute,
The life of Lazyland.

SOLO - Phylla.

The song of birds
In ivied towers;
The rippling play
Of waterway;
The lowing herds;
The breath of flowers;
The languid loves
Of turtle doves—
These simple joys are all at hand
Upon thy shores, O Lazyland!

(Enter Calynx)

Calynx: Good news! Great news! His Majesty's eldest daughter,
Princess Zara, who left our shores five years since to go to
England—the greatest, the most powerful, the wisest country
in the world—has taken a high degree at Girton, and is on
her way home again, having achieved a complete mastery over all
the elements that have tended to raise that glorious country to
her present preeminent position among civilized nations!

Salata: Then in a few months Utopia may hope to be completely
Anglicized?

Calynx: Absolutely and without a doubt.

Melene: (lazily) We are very well as we are. Life without a
care—every want supplied by a kind and fatherly monarch,
who, despot though he be, has no other thought than to make his
people happy—what have we to gain by the great change that
is in store for us?

Salata: What have we to gain? English institutions, English
tastes, and oh, English fashions!

Calynx: England has made herself what she is because, in that
favored land, every one has to think for himself. Here we have
no need to think, because our monarch anticipates all our wants,
and our political opinions are formed for us by the journals to
which we subscribe. Oh, think how much more brilliant this
dialogue would have been, if we had been accustomed to exercise
our reflective powers! They say that in England the conversation
of the very meanest is a coruscation of impromptu epigram!

(Enter Tarara in a great rage)

Tarara: Lalabalele talala! Callabale lalabalica falahle!

Calynx: (horrified) Stop—stop, I beg! (All the ladies
close their ears.)

Tarara: Callamalala galalate! Caritalla lalabalee kallalale
poo!

Ladies: Oh, stop him! stop him!

Calynx: My lord, I'm surprised at you. Are you not aware that
His Majesty, in his despotic acquiescence with the emphatic wish
of his people, has ordered that the Utopian language shall be
banished from his court, and that all communications shall
henceforward be made in the English tongue?

Tarara: Yes, I'm perfectly aware of it, although—(suddenly
presenting an explosive "cracker"). Stop—allow me.

Calynx: (pulls it). Now, what's that for?

Tarara: Why, I've recently been appointed Public Exploder to His
Majesty, and as I'm constitutionally nervous, I must accustom
myself by degrees to the startling nature of my duties. Thank you.
I was about to say that although, as Public Exploder, I am next in
succession to the throne, I nevertheless do my best to fall in
with the royal decree. But when I am overmastered by an indignant
sense of overwhelming wrong, as I am now, I slip into my native
tongue without knowing it. I am told that in the language of that
great and pure nation, strong expressions do not exist, consequently
when I want to let off steam I have no alternative but to
say, "Lalabalele molola lililah kallalale poo!"

Calynx: But what is your grievance?

Tarara: This—by our Constitution we are governed by a
Despot who, although in theory absolute—is, in practice,
nothing of the kind—being watched day and night by two Wise
Men whose duty it is, on his very first lapse from political or
social propriety, to denounce him to me, the Public Exploder, and
it then becomes my duty to blow up His Majesty with
dynamite—allow me. (Presenting a cracker which Calynx
pulls.) Thank you—and, as some compensation to my wounded
feelings, I reign in his stead.

Calynx: Yes. After many unhappy experiments in the direction of
an ideal Republic, it was found that what may be described as a
Despotism tempered by Dynamite provides, on the whole, the most
satisfactory description of ruler—an autocrat who dares not
abuse his autocratic power.

Tarara: That's the theory—but in practice, how does it
act? Now, do you ever happen to see the Palace Peeper? (producing
a "Society" paper).

Calynx: Never even heard of the journal.

Tarara: I'm not surprised, because His Majesty's agents always
buy up the whole edition; but I have an aunt in the publishing
department, and she has supplied me with a copy. Well, it
actually teems with circumstantially convincing details of the
King's abominable immoralities! If this high-class journal may be
believed, His Majesty is one of the most Heliogabalian profligates
that ever disgraced an autocratic throne! And do these Wise Men
denounce him to me? Not a bit of it! They wink at his
immoralities! Under the circumstances I really think I am
justified in exclaiming "Lalabelele molola lililah kalabalale
poo!" (All horrified.) I don't care—the occasion demands
it.

(Exit Tarara)

(March. Enter Guard, escorting Scaphio and Phantis.)

CHORUS.

O make way for the Wise Men!
They are the prizemen—
Double-first in the world's university!
For though lovely this island
(Which is my land),
She has no one to match them in her city.
They're the pride of Utopia—
Cornucopia
Is each his mental fertility.
O they make no blunder,
And no wonder,
For they're triumphs of infallibility.

DUET — Scaphio and Phantis.

In every mental lore
(The statement smacks of vanity)
We claim to rank before
The wisest of humanity.
As gifts of head and heart
We wasted on "utility,"
We're "cast" to play a part
Of great responsibility.

Our duty is to spy
Upon our King's illicites,
And keep a watchful eye
On all his eccentricities.
If ever a trick he tries
That savours of rascality,
At our decree he dies
Without the least formality.

We fear no rude rebuff,
Or newspaper publicity;
Our word is quite enough,
The rest is electricity.
A pound of dynamite
Explodes in his auriculars;
It's not a pleasant sight—
We'll spare you the particulars.

Its force all men confess,
The King needs no admonishing—
We may say its success
Is something quite astonishing.
Our despot it imbues
With virtues quite delectable,
He minds his P's and Q's,—
And keeps himself respectable.

Of a tyrant polite
He's paragon quite.
He's as modest and mild
In his ways as a child;
And no one ever met
With an autocrat yet,
So delightfully bland
To the least in the land!
So make way for the wise men, etc.

(Exeunt all but Scaphio and Phantis. Phantis is pensive.)
Scaphio: Phantis, you are not in your customary exuberant
spirits. What is wrong?

Phantis: Scaphio, I think you once told me that you have never
loved?

Scaphio: Never! I have often marvelled at the fairy influence
which weaves its rosy web about the faculties of the greatest and
wisest of our race; but I thank Heaven I have never been subjected
to its singular fascination. For, oh, Phantis! there is that
within me that tells me that when my time does come, the
convulsion will be tremendous! When I love, it will be with the
accumulated fervor of sixty-six years! But I have an ideal—a
semi-transparent Being, filled with an inorganic pink
jelly—and I have never yet seen the woman who approaches
within measurable distance of it. All are
opaque—opaque—opaque!

Phantis: Keep that ideal firmly before you, and love not until
you find her. Though but fifty-five, I am an old campaigner in
the battle-fields of Love; and, believe me, it is better to be as
you are, heart-free and happy, than as I am—eternally racked
with doubting agonies! Scaphio, the Princess Zara returns from
England today!

Scaphio: My poor boy, I see it all.

Phantis: Oh! Scaphio, she is so beaut