on--

PIPER
[sternly]
Your word.

JACOBUS
I, would say--just--

PIPER
Your word.

JACOBUS
Upon--

PIPER
Your word.
Sure, 't was a rotten parchment!

JACOBUS
This is a base,
Conniving miser!

PIPER
[turning proudly]
Stand forth, Cheat-the-Devil!
[Up steps the DEVIL in red. PEOPLE shrink, and then come closer.
Be not afeard. He pleased you all, of late.
He hath no sting.--So, boy! Do off thy head.--

[CHEAT-THE-DEVIL doffs his red head-dress and stands forth,
a pale and timorous youth, gentle and half-witted.

Michael, stand forth!
[MICHAEL comes down, bear-head in hand.

BARBARA
[regarding him sadly]
That goodly sword-eater!

PIPER
[defiantly]
So, Michael, so.--These be two friends of mine.
Pay now an even third to each of us.
Or, to content your doubts, to each of these
Do you pay here and now, five hundred guilders.
Who gets it matters little, for us friends.
But you will pay the sum, friend. You will pay!--

HANS, AXEL, AND CROWD
Come, there's an honest fellow. Ay, now, pay!
--There's a good friend.--And would I had the same.
--One thousand guilders?
--No, too much.
--No, no.

KURT
Pay jugglers?--With a rope apiece!

JACOBUS
Why--so--

PIPER
They are my friends; and they shall share with me.
'T is time that Hamelin reckoned us for men;
--Hath ever dealt with us as we were vermin.
Now have I rid you of the other sort--
Right you that score!--

KURT
These outcasts!

PIPER
[hotly]
Say you so?
Michael, my man! Which of you here will try
With glass or fire, with him?

MICHAEL
[sullenly]
No, no more glass, to-day!

PIPER
Then fire and sword!
[They back away.]
So!--And there's not one man
In Hamelin, here, so honest of his word.
Stroller! A pretty choice you leave us.--Quit
This strolling life, or stroll into a cage!
What do you offer him? A man eats fire--
Swords, glass, young April frogs--

CHILDREN
Do it again!
Do it again!

PIPER
You say to such a man,--
'Come be a monk! A weaver!' Pretty choice.
Here's Cheat-the-Devil, now.

PETER the Cobbler
But what's his name?

PIPER
He doesn't know. What would you? Nor do I.
But for the something he has seen of life,
Making men merry, he 'd know something more!
The gentlest devil ever spiked Lost Souls
Into Hell-mouth,--for nothing-by-the-day!

OLD URSULA
[with her ear-trumpet]
Piper, why do you call him Cheat-the-Devil?

PIPER
Because his deviltry is all a cheat:--