2nd Prince:  Be quiet....  I think I hear someone coming! (Looks out.)

3rd Prince:  (Looking out.) I see him.  He is not a right man ...he is very strange looking....

4th Prince:  (Looking out.) Oh!  It is an Ogre!  A Grugach!

(All shrink back and hurriedly put on masks.)

Ogre:  (Coming in:  he wears a frightful mask, has red hair and a cloak of rough skins and carries a whip with many lashes.) What makes ye late to-night, ye young schemers?  What was it delayed ye?  Lagging along the road.

1st Prince:  We came as fast as we could.  It was getting dusk in the wood.

Ogre:  Dusk, good morrow to you!  I’ll dusk ye!  I had a mind to go after ye and to change myself into the form of a wolf, and catch a hold of ye with my long sharp teeth!

2nd Prince:  We did not know there was any great hurry.

Ogre:  There is always hurry when you are on my messages.  What did I bring you away from your own house for and put ye on the shaughraun for and keep ye wandering, if it was not to be serviceable and helpful to myself.  Show me now what ye have in your pocket or your bag.

3rd Prince:  This is all we got in the bag. (Holds it out.) It is but very little.

Ogre:  (Turning it out and counting it.) Coppers!  Silver!  What is this?  A piece of gold!  Is that what ye call little?  What notions ye have!  Take care did ye keep any of it back!  If ye did I’ll skin ye with the lash of my cat-o’-nine-tails. (Shakes it.)

4th Prince:  That is all we got.  It should maybe pay for our supper in some place.

Ogre:  What supper?  To go buy supper with my money!  It will go to add to my store of treasure in the cave that is under ground.

5th Prince:  We are hungry, very hungry.  When will the supper be ready?

Ogre:  It will be ready whenever ye will ready it for yourselves.  Ye should know that by this time.

1st Prince:  We would make it ready if we were acquainted with the way.

Ogre:  It is gone cracked ye are?  What is it ye are thinking to get for your supper?  What ailed ye that ye didn’t climb a tree and suck a few pigeon’s eggs?

2nd Prince:  We were thinking of a pigeon pie.

Ogre:  A what!!!

2nd Prince:  A pigeon pie.

Ogre:  Hurry on then making your pigeon pie!  There are pigeons enough there in the corner, that a hawk that is my carrier brought me in a while ago.  And there’s a pike that was in the lake these hundred years, an otter is after leaving at my door.

3rd Prince:  (Taking a pigeon.) I don’t think this is a right pigeon.

4th Prince:  Pigeons in a pie are not the pigeons that have feathers.

5th Prince:  (To Ogre.) Please, sir, where can we find pigeons without feathers, that are trussed on a silver skewer?