TOURIST [_angrily_]. Do you mean to tell me it's genuine if it isn't stolen? Go on. Not much. MILITARY WOMAN [_amiably_]. Are all these your children? TOURIST. Yes, madam. A father's duty. You see, they are protesting. It is the eternal conflict between fathers and children. Here is such a tragedy going on, such a heart-rending tragedy--Mary, you are blinking your eyes again. MILITARY WOMAN. You are quite right. Children must be hardened to things. But why do you call this a terrible tragedy? Every roofer, when he falls, falls from a great height. But this here--what is it? A hundred, two hundred feet. I saw a man fall plumb from the sky. TOURIST [_overwhelmed_]. You don't say? ALECK. Children, listen. Plumb from the sky. MILITARY WOMAN. Yes, yes. I saw an aëronaut drop from the clouds and go crash upon an iron roof. TOURIST. How terrible! MILITARY WOMAN. That's what I call a tragedy. It took two hours to bring me back to consciousness, and all that time they pumped water on me, the scoundrels. I was nearly drowned. From that day on I never step out of the door without taking spirits of ammonia with me. [_Enter a strolling troop of Italian singers and musicians: a short, fat tenor, with a reddish beard and large, watery, stupidly dreamy eyes, singing with extraordinary sweetness; a skinny humpback with a jockey cap, and a screeching baritone; a bass who is also a mandolinist, looking like a bandit; a girl with a violin, closing her eyes when she plays, so that only the whites are seen. They take their stand and begin to sing: "Sul mare lucica--Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia--"_] MARY [_dismally_]. Papa, children, look. He is beginning to wave his hands. TOURIST. Is that the effect the music has upon him? MILITARY WOMAN. Quite possible. Music usually goes with such things. But that'll make him fall sooner than he should. Musicians, go away from here! Go! [_A tall tourist, with up-curled mustache, violently gesticulating, enters, followed by a small group attracted by curiosity._] TALL TOURIST. It's scandalous. Why don't they save him? Ladies and gentlemen, you all heard him shout: "Save me." Didn't you? THE CURIOUS [_in chorus_]. Yes, yes, we heard him. TALL TOURIST. There you are. I distinctly heard these words: "Save me! Why don't they save me?" It's scandalous. Policemen, policemen! Why don't you save him? What are you doing there? POLICEMEN. We are cleaning up the place for him to fall. TALL TOURIST. That's a sensible thing to do, too. But why don't you save him? You ought to save him. If a man asks you to save him, it is absolutely essential to save him. Isn't it so, ladies and gentlemen? THE CURIOUS [_in chorus_]. True, absolutely true. It is essential to save him.