In this short scene, King Lear's son, Alphonse, tries to convince his father that he is the best fighter in the world. He tells the boy that he and his father have been friends since childhood, and that they have been fighting for the honor of King Lear. But when the boy asks him who is the better fighter, the king replies that he does not know. The boy tells him that he has found a ball in the park, and a group of children has asked him which is better--knights or heroes--and now he is fighting over it. The king says that the question is stupid, because he has never known anyone who was better than the knight. He says that he knows that the knight has always tried to bully him, and he is disgusted by the man's behavior. He asks the boy why he has called him a devil, and the boy replies that the man is not a hero, but a "devil." The boy says that they are a team, and if the man can't fight alone, he should get a friend to help him. The knight replies that anyone who pays attention would know that this is not the kind of man he is. King Lear says that if he had just thought his own business, he would have let the man live until the "day of destruction" . He adds that fire-fighting is a team sport, and when a man cannot stop the man from fighting alone, a friend can come to the aid of the man. This is an iron rule for a company of fire-fighters, he says, because after everything they have learned in their fights, company 8 will never miss this opportunity. He is sorry that he could not find a way to finish the man off without hitting him, too, but he is comforted by the fact that he was a