2nd Lab. And fancy being drilled by that old fool from Bosphorus—"Most Illustrious, this is your proper place;" "Respectable sir, get you back there" (mimics Megacles), and so forth.
1st Lab. Well, well, it is good to be content. But I warrant we are the only two unhappy creatures in Cherson to-night, who have the ill fortune to be sober. And such wine too, and nothing to pay!
2nd Lab. Never mind, citizen, we shall be paid in meal or malt, I dare say, and we are bound to keep sober. By the way, it is a curiously contrived bonfire this.
1st Lab. It will be the crowning triumph of the whole festival, the senator said.
2nd Lab. But who ever heard of a bonfire on a large scale like this, so close to an old building? You know our orders: we are to place lines of faggots and straw close to the building on every side, well soaked with oil, and certain sealed vessels full of a secret compound in the midst of them. And just before midnight we are to run with torches and set light to the whole bonfire, to amuse the noble guests at the banquet.
[Irene at a window, overhearing.
1st Lab. Ah! do you not see? It is a device of the Senate to startle our friends from Bosphorus. The faggots and straw blaze up fiercely round the wall; then, when all is confusion, the substance in the sealed vessels escapes and at once puts out the fire, and the laugh is with us. Our friends from Bosphorus know what we can do in chemistry before now.
2nd Lab. Faith, a right merry device! Ha! ha! What a head thou hast, citizen! Well, we must go on with our work. Lay the faggots evenly.
Ire. (at the window above). Great God! what is this?
We are doomed to die!