(_The_ PRINCE _shrugs his shoulder to indicate that love cannot be forced_.) LORD MAYOR (_darkly_). And now we come to the severer test. (_With a neat action, rather like taking a lid off a pot, the_ LORD MAYOR _lets it be known to the ladies that they must now lift their skirts to show their feet. When this devastating test is concluded, there are only two competitors left in the room._) LORD TIMES (_almost as if he were thinking of himself_). Can’t have Two. (_Cards such as_ CINDERELLA _saw at the horse show, with ‘1st,’ ‘2nd,’ and ‘3rd’ on them, are handed to the_ PRINCE. _Like one well used to such proceedings, he pins 2nd and 3rd into the ladies’ bodices._) QUEEN (_gloomily_). But still no first. (_The_ CHILDREN _applaud; they have been interfering repeatedly_.) KING. Come, come, proud youth, you feel no palps at all? PRINCE. Not a palp. Perhaps for a moment this one’s nose—that one’s cock of the head—But it has passed. (_He drearily resumes his rocking chair. No one seems to know what to do next._) MARIE (_to the rescue_). The two Ugly Sisters! Monsieur le Roi, the two Ugly Sisters! (_She points derisively at the winners._) KING (_badgered_). How did these children get their invites? (_This is another thing that no one knows. Once more the room rocks, and_ MR. BODIE _passes across it as if looking for some one. Then a growing clamour is heard outside. Bugles sound. The_ LORD MAYOR _goes and returns with strange news_.) LORD MAYOR. Another competitor, my King. Make way for the Lady Cinderella! KING. Cinderella? I don’t know her. GLADYS (_nearly falling out of the box_). You’ll soon know her. Now you’ll see! Somebody wake the Prince up. (_The portals are flung open, and_ CINDERELLA _is seen alighting from her lovely equipage, which we will not describe because some one has described it before. But note the little waggle of her foot just before she favours the ground. We have thought a great deal about how our_ CINDERELLA _should be dressed for this occasion: white of course, and she looked a darling in it, but we boggle at its really being of the grandest stuff and made in the shop where the Beauties got theirs. No, the material came from poorer warehouses in some shabby district not far from the street of the penny shop; her eyes had glistened as she gazed at it through the windows, and she paid for it with her life’s blood, and made the frock herself. Very possibly it was bunchy here and there._