At last the curtain drew aside for the players’ first offering. The whole town crowded around the wagon ready to laugh itself helpless. Eorthas gave them a well-known comic piece about an absurd nobleman and his attempts to marry off his only daughter to an obnoxious foreign ruler. The daughter won every heart by her astonishing beauty and abundant virtue. Tears flowed and there were heartfelt cries of, “Get out while y’ can, love!” When she confided that she secretly loved a handsome stable-boy—and it was mutual—there was almost a riot. Falakhoth agonised as the old nobleman’s sister, an amazingly ugly widow who had neglected to shave that morning, tried to force the stable-boy to marry her instead. After much hilarity, rudeness, and ingenuity, the stable-boy turned out to be heir to a di
