When Sly awakes, the Lord's plan goes into full swing. The servingmen dote on the beggar, insisting he is, in fact, lord of all he surveys. Sly's immediate response is, of course, disbelief. Our first glimpse of Sly revealed a man who uttered four lines and passed out. Not surprisingly, his first action in this scene is to call for "a pot of small ale" (1). In addition to revealing his predilection for liquor, Sly's request reveals his social status. Accustomed to having very little money, he calls for a cheap drink. When the serving men encourage "[his] lordship" to drink "sack" and taste of the "conserves" (2–3), we begin to see just how much out of his element Sly is — and he knows it.
With an obvious lack of decorum Sly informs the serving men he is neither "[his] honor" nor "lordship" (5–6). He continues, disparaging sack and conserves, two of the pleasures of the upper class, and then very wittily confesses there is no need to ask what he wants to wear because he has only one set of clothes, so there is little choice to be made. Clearly at this point, Sly is in control of his identity. He knows who he is and remembers his accustomed lifestyle. In fact, in many ways, Sly deserves respect because he is initially skeptical about the situation in which he finds himself. However, it doesn't take long before the rhetoric of the Lord and his servants begins to take ahold of Sly (but who could blame him? In many ways, for a poor man to wake up rich is a dream come true).
When the Lord enters (13), the duping really picks up steam. Blaming Sly's seemingly mad behavior on a foul spirit (14–16), the Lord begins to talk Sly into believing he really is of the gentry rather than, as Sly himself confesses, "by birth a peddler, by education a cardmaker, by transmutation a bearherd, and now by present profession a tinker" (18–20). Sly humorously exposes his true self in an attempt to clarify the situation by suggesting the Lord call upon Marian Hacket who definitely will confirm he's in debt.
