_]
A COCK
[_To the_ PEACOCK.] Master, which of us will you make the fashion?
THE PADUA COCK
[_Quickly coming forward._] Me! I look like a palm-tree!
A CHINA COCK
[_Pushing the_ PADUA COCK _aside._] I look like a pagoda!
A BIG FEATHER-FOOTED COCK
[_Pushing the_ CHINA COCK _aside._] Me! I have cauliflowers sprouting at
my heels!
CHANTECLER
Each is in one the show and Mr. Barnum!
ALL
[_Parading and filing past the_ PEACOCK.] See my beak! See my feet! See
my feathers!
CHANTECLER
[_Suddenly shouting at them._] Lo! While you hold your costume contest,
a Scarecrow gives you his blessing!
[_Behind them, in fact, the wind has lifted the arms of the_ SCARECROW,
_which loosely wave above the pageant._]
ALL
[_Starting back._] What?
CHANTECLER
Behold this dummy talking to that lay-figure! [_While the wind blows
through the flapping rags._] What say the trousers, dancing their limp
fandango? They say, "We were once the fashion!" And, terror of the
titlark, what says the old hat which a beggar would none of? "I was the
fashion!" And the coat? "I was the fashion!" And the tattered sleeves,
that no one has care to mend, try to clasp the Wind, whom they take for
the Fashion, and drop back empty--The Wind has passed, the Wind is far!
THE PEACOCK
[_To the animals slightly dismayed by this address._] You poor-spirited
creatures, that thing cannot talk!
CHANTECLER
Man says the same of us.
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