VIZIER. Your Highness, the people are clamoring! They would see their chief in the attire of the old caliphs—the crown and sceptre await to be borne anew by a branch of the old ancestral tree.
PEHR. [Catches sight of crown and sceptre.] Ah! Vizier, who can command me to forswear my faith?
VIZIER. The laws.
PEHR. Who made the laws?
VIZIER. Our forefathers.
PEHR. They were weak mortals, like ourselves. Well and good, I'll make over all the laws!
VIZIER. The Caliph does not reconstruct laws, for our form of administration has not given him law-making rights.
PEHR. What is the form of administration in this land?
VIZIER. Constitutional Despotism.
PEHR. Answer! Am I Caliph, or not?