Kaiser?
[Laughs inwardly.]
Why, you old soothsayer-humbug!
no Kaiser are you; you are nought but an onion.
I’m going to peel you now, my good Peer!
You won’t escape either by begging or howling.
[Takes an onion and pulls off layer after layer.]
There lies the outermost layer, all torn;
that’s the shipwrecked man on the jolly-boat’s keel.
Here’s the passenger layer, scanty and thin;—
and yet in its taste there’s a tang of Peer Gynt.
Next underneath is the gold-digger ego;
the juice is all gone — if it ever had any.
This coarse-grained layer with the hardened skin
is the peltry-hunter by Hudson’s Bay.
The next one looks like a crown;— oh, thanks!
we’ll throw it away without more ado.
Here’s the archaeologist, short but sturdy;
and here is the Prophet, juicy and fresh.
He stinks, as the Scripture has it, of lies,
enough to bring the water to an honest man’s eyes.