alogical tree!

CHAMBERLAIN. [Examines ancestral chart again.] You have got an awful
width to it!

AMEER. I had to put in a bastard line; it looks so flourishing on
paper, and gives to the race a semblance of strength, which is always
flattering.

CHAMBERLAIN. [Laughs.] What will the Caliph Omar say to this?

[Enter Court Mullah.]

MULLAH. Allah akbar barai! How dost?

CHAMBERLAIN. Allah! Eloim! I thank you, excellently.

MULLAH. Is the Renunciation Act made out in duplicate form?

CHAMBERLAIN. In duplicate form. Will you be good enough to compare, then
he will only have to add his signature.

MULLAH. If there's time enough, it would be the better way.

[Chamberlain takes two papers from table and hands one to the Mullah.]

CHAMBERLAIN. [Reads aloud.] "We, Omar the twenty-seventh, do hereby
solemnly forswear our--the Roman Catholic--faith, and adopt the
Mohammedan doctrine as it is determined in the Koran and the sacred
writings."

Dated, etc.
OMAR.

Correct?

MULLAH. Correct.

[Enter Pehr--Grand Vizier and Royal Historian having entered just before
him. Ameer jumps up from the floor with the genealogical chart; Royal
Historian stands quietly and jots down in a book what he hears.]

VIZIER. Will it please Your Highness to scan this ancestral chart, which
our--and the Kingdom's Ameer has made of Your Highness' illustrious old
family tree.

PEHR. My ancestral chart? I have never known of any relative but my
father, the old sexton.

VIZIER. [Pretends not to hear.] It begins with a great and glorious
name--Caliph Omar--

PEHR. Caliph Omar! What kind of fish is that?

VIZIER. [Sternly.] That is no fish. He was a great and honorable ruler.

PEHR. Be that as it may, but I was born in wedlock and not between satin
sheets, good gentlemen!

VIZIER. It does not become a ruler to be selfish; he must in all
particulars sacrifice his personal interests and tastes for the welfare
of the people.

PEHR. Very good; but does the welfare of the people demand that I shall
be illegitimate?

VIZIER. Yes.

PEHR. Then hand me the paper! [Ameer delivers ancestral chart and a
pen.] It begins with a lie, and will probably end with theft. [Signs.]

VIZIER. There remains a slight formality--Will it please Your Highness
to sign this paper also. [Mullah presents Renunciation Act.]

PEHR. What now?

VIZIER. Your Highness need not trouble himself to road; it is only a
mat