SCENE CXLIV.
The Bijou Bazaar of Gems and Other Angular Things.
(Prop hands dressed as elves replace the lily pads from the previous scene with an assortment of large polyhedra painted to resemble jewels and rocks. The Primrose Urchins continue their ribbon dance, &c. until GOBLIBERTA resumes center stage.)
GOBLIBERTA (To 17th PRINCE.)
From here you must select a jewel or stone
That may effect the passage to your throne.
The gnomes are fair; the price shall not be steep,
But heed! Your choice you must forever keep.
17th PRINCE
From here, you say, one stone is boon to me?
That should a friend and not a bauble be.
Yet there’s a shape, three edges to each face:
Strange — to my mind, it dominates the place.
59th FAIRY
It does not shine at all — but watch it stir!
A visage grows, while other things occur.
62nd FAIRY
He sprouts a neck, a trunk, limbs finished soon —
GOBLIBERTA
His name is Tom O’Quompuleptitroon.
TOM O’QUOMPULEPTITROON
Your servant.
17th PRINCE
So you’ll help me in my quest?
At first pray demonstrate what you do best.
(Music. Tom O’Quompuleptitroon enacts his serpentine jig.)
GOBLIBERTA
With Tom erupting thusly into dance
Let’s vitalize the small folk: now’s the chance.
(Fairies 62, 54 & 71 enter the audience at various points to rouse all sleeping children. Those able to stand are led in a processional queue, entreated to chant the “Pudding, pudding, &c.” ditty if necessary. Resume seating at music’s end.)
17th PRINCE
So now, with thirteen treasures from before,
And Tom O’Q besides, would I need more?
I think our duty here is at an end.
68th FAIRY
Enormous feather fans and clouds descend!
(Deployment of cloud and peafowl props hasten change to)
SCENE CXLV.
The Golden Court of the Sebastocrat Floggrimoodle.
[Here the fragment breaks off.]