Page:Heartbreak House, Great Catherine, and Playlets of the War.djvu/213

 pipinion is that Dashkoff is drunk. Scanlous. Poor Patiomkin go bye bye. [He relapses into drunken slumbers.]


 * Some of the courtiers move to carry him away.

CATHERINE [stopping them]. Let him lie. Let him sleep it off. If he goes out it will be to a tavern and low company for the rest of the day. [Indulgently.] There! [She takes a pillow from the bed and puts it under his head: then turns to Edstaston: surveys him with perfect dignity: and asks, in her queenliest manner.] Varinka, who is this gentleman?

VARINKA. A foreign captain: I cannot pronounce his name. I think is mad. He came to the Prince and said he must see your Majesty. He can talk of nothing else. We could not prevent him.

EDSTASTON [overwhelmed by this apparent betrayal]. Oh! Madam: I am perfectly sane: I am actually an Englishman. I should never have dreamt of approaching your Majesty without the fullest credentials. I have letters from the English ambassador, from the Prussian ambassador. [Naively.] But everybody assured me that Prince Patiomkm is all-powerful with your Majesty; so I naturally applied to him.

PATIOMKIN [interrupts the conversation by an agonized wheezing groan as of a donkey beginning to bray]!!!

CATHERINE [like a fishfag]. Schweig, du Hund. [Resuming her impressive royal manner.] Have you never been taught, sir, how a gentleman should enter the presence of a sovereign?

EDSTASTON. Yes, Madam; but I did not enter your presence: I was carried.

CATHERINE. But you say you asked the Prince to carry you.

EDSTASTON. Certainly not, Madam. I protested against it with all my might. I appeal to this lady to confirm me.