"Oh, it is very pretty!" said the Emperor aloud. "It has my highest approval!"
He nodded his head happily, and stared at the empty looms. Never would he say that he could see nothing!
His friends, too, gazed and gazed, but saw no more than had the others. Yet they all cried out, "It is beautiful!" and advised the Emperor to wear a suit made of this cloth in a great procession that was soon to take place.
"It is magnificent, gorgeous!" was the cry that went from mouth to mouth. The Emperor gave each of the rogues a royal ribbon to wear in his buttonhole, and called them the Imperial Court Weavers.
The rogues were up the whole night before the morning of the procession. They kept more than sixteen candles burning. The people could see them hard at work, completing the new clothes of the Emperor. They took yards of stuff down from the empty looms; they made cuts in the air with big scissors; they sewed with needles without thread; and, at last, they said, "The clothes are ready!"
The Emperor himself, with his grandest courtiers, went to put on his new suit.
"See!" said the rogues, lifting their arms as if holding something. "Here are the trousers! Here is the coat! Here is the cape!" and so on. "It is as light as a spider's web. One might think one had nothing on. But that is just the beauty of it!"
"Very nice," said the courtiers. But they could see nothing; for there was nothing!
"Will your Imperial Majesty be graciously pleased to take off your clothes," asked the rogues, "so that we may put on the new ones before this long mirror?"
The Emperor took off all his own clothes, and the two rogues pretended to put on each new garment as it was ready. They wrapped him about, and they tied and they buttoned. The Emperor turned round and round before the mirror.