"How beautifully they fit! How well they suit his Majesty!" said everybody.
"If it please your Majesty, the procession is ready," announced the Master of the Ceremonies.
"I am ready," said the Emperor. And he turned again to the mirror as if to take a last admiring view of his finery.
The courtiers whose duty it was to bear the Emperor's train put their hands near the floor as if to lift the train; then they acted as if they were holding it up. They would not have it known that they could see nothing.
So the Emperor strutted forward in the procession under a splendid canopy, and the people in the streets and at the windows said, "How grand are the Emperor's new clothes! What beautiful silk, how it shines!"
No one would admit that he could see nothing, for that would have proved him unfit for his office, or stupid. None of the Emperor's clothes had ever been so praised.
"But the Emperor has nothing on!" said a child at last.
"Listen to the innocent child!" said the father, and each one whispered to his neighbour what the child had said.
"The Emperor has nothing on!" the people began to call out at last.
This seemed to the Emperor to be true; but he thought to himself, "I must not stop now." And the courtiers walked behind him with pompous air, gravely holding up the train which was not there.