PRESIDENT: Prince, this is most valuable information. Michael, you were right. If it is not to-night it will be too late. Read that.

MICHAEL: Ah! A loaf of bread flung to a starving nation. A lie to cheat the people. (Tears it up.) It must be to-night. I do not believe him. Would he have kept his crown had he loved the people? But how are we to get at him, and shall we who could not bear the scorpions of the father suffer the whips of the son? No; whatever is, must be destroyed: whatever is, is wrong.

PRINCE PAUL: The key of the private door in the street. (Hands key.)

PRESIDENT: Prince, we are in your debt.

PRINCE PAUL (smiling): The normal condition of the Nihilists.

MICHAEL: Ay, but we are paying our debts off with interest now. Two Emperors in one week. That will make the balance straight. We would have thrown in a Prime Minister if you had not come.

PRINCE PAUL: Ah, I am sorry you told me. It robs my visit of all its picturesqueness and adventure. I thought I was perilling my head by coming here, and you tell me I have saved it. One is sure to be disappointed if one tries to get romance out of modern life.

MICHAEL: It is not so romantic a thing to lose one’s head, Prince Paul.

PRINCE PAUL: No, but it must often be very dull to keep it. Don’t you find that sometimes? (Clock strikes six.)

VERA (sinking into a seat): Oh, it is past the hour! It is past the hour!

MICHAEL (to PRESIDENT): Remember to-morrow will be too late.

PRESIDENT: Brothers, it is full time. Which of us is absent?

CONSPIRATORS: Alexis! Alexis!

PRESIDENT: Michael, read Rule 7.

MICHAEL: ‘When any brother shall have disobeyed a summons to be present, the president shall inquire if there is anything alleged against him.’

PRESIDENT: Is there anything against our brother Alexis?

CONSPIRATORS: He wears a crown! He wears a crown!

PRESIDENT: Michael, read Article 7 of the Code of Revolution.

MICHAEL: ‘Between the Nihilists and all men who wear crowns above their fellows, there is war to the death.’

PRESIDENT: Brothers, what say you? Is Alexis, the Czar, guilty or not?

OMNES: He is guilty!

PRESIDENT: What shall the penalty be?

OMNES: Death!

PRESIDENT: Let the lots be prepared; it shall be to-night.

PRINCE PAUL: Ah, this is really interesting! I was getting afraid conspiracies were as dull as courts are.

PROFESSOR MARFA: My forte is more in writing pamphlets than in taking shots. Still a regicide has always a place in history.

MICHAEL: If your pistol is as harmless as your pen, this young tyrant will have a long life.

PRINCE PAUL: You ought to remember, too, Professor, that if you were seized, as you probably would be, and hung, as you certainly would be, there would be nobody left to read your own articles.