This was followed by loud laughs from the crowd, Jan was so dumfounded that all he could do was to stand still and look at the people. He glanced from one to another, unable to get over his amazement. Dear, dear! Was there no one among all those who had honoured and applauded him who would help him now, in his hour of need? The people stood there, unmoved. He saw then that he meant nothing to them and that they would not lift a finger for him. He became so frightened that all his imperial greatness fell from him, and he was like a little child that is ready to cry because its playthings have been taken away.
Lars Gunnarson turned to the huge pile of wares stacked beside him, prepared to go on with the auction. Then Jan attempted to do something himself. Wailing and protesting, he went up to the table where Lars stood, quickly bent down and tried to overturn it. But Lars was too alert for him; with a swing of the imperial stick, he dealt Jan a blow across his back that sent him reeling.
"No you don't!" cried he. "I'll keep these articles for the present. You've wasted enough time already on this emperor nonsense. Now you'd better go straight home and take to your digging again."
Jan did not appear to be specially anxious to obey; whereupon Lars again raised the stick, and nothing more was needed to make Emperor Johannes of Portugallia turn and flee.
No one made a move to follow him or offered him a word of sympathy. No one called to him to come back. Indeed folks only laughed when they saw how pitilessly and unceremoniously he had been stripped of all his grandeur.
But this did not suit Lars, either. He wanted to have it as solemn at his auctions as at a church service.
"I think it's better to talk sense to Jan than to laugh at him," he said, reprovingly. "There are many who encourage him in his foolishness and who even call him Emperor. But that is hardly the right way to treat him. It would be far better to make him understand who and what he is, even though he doesn't like it. I have been his employer for some little time, therefore it is my bounden duty to see that he goes back to his work; otherwise he'll soon be a charge on the parish."
After that Lars held a good auction, with close and high bids. The satisfaction which he now felt was not lessened when on his homecoming the next day, he learned that Jan of Ruffluck had again put on his working clothes, and gone back to his digging.
"We must never remind him of his madness," Lars Gunnarson warned his people, "then perhaps his reason will be spared to him. Anyhow, he has never had more than he needs."