CHEVALIER
Ten thousand? But the scoundrel owes me seventy thousand.
PRUSSIAN OFFICER
Your honor must lower his voice.
CHEVALIER
(whispering)
All Europe shall hear of this!
PRUSSIAN OFFICER
As you please.
Both lapse into silence.
The coach drives by. Suddenly -- "boom," the alarm cannon begins to roar.
PRUSSIAN OFFICER
Do not be alarmed. The alarm cannon only signals a deserter.
Chevalier nods.
The coach drives by and action as described.
RODERICK (V.O.)
Hearing the sound of the alarm cannon, the common people came out along the road, with fowling-pieces and pitch-forks, in hopes to catch the truant. The gendarmes looked very anxious to be on the lookout for him too. The price of a deserter was fifty crowns to those who brought him in.
The black and white barriers came in view at last hard by Bruck, and opposite them the green and yellow of Saxony. The Saxon custom-house officers came out.
CHEVALIER
I have no luggage.
PRUSSIAN OFFICER
The gentleman has nothing contraband.
The Prussian officers, grinning, hand the Chevalier the purse and take their leave of their prisoner with much respect.
The Chevalier de Belle Fast gives them three frederic apiece.
CHEVALIER
Gentlemen, I wish you a good day. Will you please go to the house from whence we set out this morning, and tell my man there to send my baggage on to Three Kings at Dresden?
RODERICK (V.O.)
Then ordering fresh horses, the Chevalier set off on his journey for that capital. I need not tell you that I was the Chevalier.
Roderick reading a letter over his breakfast in bed.
CHEVALIER (V.O.)
From the Chevalier de Belle Fast to Roderick James, Esquire, Gentilhomme Anglais. At the Hotel des trois Couronnes, Dresden, Saxe. My dear Roderick -- This comes to you by a sure hand, no other than Mr. Lumpit, of the English mission, who is acquainted, as all Berlin will be directly, with our wonderful story. They only know half as yet; they only know that a deserter went off in my clothes, and all are in admiration of your cleverness and valor.
Action as per description in letter.
CHEVALIER (V.O.)
As I lay in my bed two and a half hours after your departure, in comes your ex-captain, Galgenstein.
CAPTAIN GALGENSTEIN
(in his imperious Dutch manner)
Roderick! Are you there? No answer.
CAPTAIN GALGENSTEIN
The rogue is gone out.
Action as per voice over.
CHEVALIER (V.O.)
Straightaway he makes for the red box where I keep my love letters, my glass eye which I used to wear, my two sets of Paris teeth, and my other private matters that you know of. He first tries a bunch of keys, but none of them fit the English lock. Then he takes out of his pocket a chisel and hammer, and falls to work like a professional burglar, actually bursting open the little box! Now was my time to act! I advance towards him armed with an immense water-jug. I come noiselessly up to him just as he has broken the box, and, with all my might, I deal him such a blow over the head as smashes the water-jug to bits, and sends the captain with a snort lifeless to the ground. Then I ring all the bells in the house; and shout, and swear, and scream, "Thieves! -- Thieves! -- Landlord! -- Murder! -- Fire!" until the whole household comes tumbling up the stairs.
CHEVALIER
Where is my servant? Who dares to rob me in open day? Look at the villain whom I find in the act of breaking my chest open! Send for the police, send for his Excellency the Austrian Minister! All Europe shall know of this insult!
LANDLORD
Dear heaven! We saw you go away three hours ago.
CHEVALIER
Me! Why, man, I have been in bed all morning. I am ill -- I have taken physic -- I have not left the house this morning! Where is that scoundrel, Lazlo? But, stop! Where are my clothes and wig?
CHAMBERMAID
I have it -- I have it! Lazlo is off in your honor's dress.
CHEVALIER
And my money -- my money! Where is my purse with forty-eight frederics in it? But we have one of the villains left, Officers, seize him.
LANDLORD
(more and more astonished)
It's the young Herr Galgenstein.
CHEVALIER
What! A gentleman breaking open my trunk with hammer and chisel -impossible!
CHEVALIER (V.O.)
Herr Galgenstein was returning to life by this time, with a swelling on his skull as big as a saucepan; and the officers carried him off, and, to make a long story short, poor Galgenstein is now on his way to Spandau; and his uncle, the Minister of Police Galgenstein, has brought me five hundred louis, with a humble request that I would leave Berlin forthwith, and hush up this painful matter.
Roderick, the Chevalier and the Duke of Wurttemberg.
RODERICK (V.O.)
The Chevalier de Belle Fast was in particularly good order with the Duke of Wurttemberg, whose court was, at this period, the most brilliant in all Europe.
The Duke of Wurttemberg chatting with ballet dancers, who will perform at the party.
RODERICK (V.O.)
He spent fabulous sums on the ballets and operas. All the ballerinas were pretty, and they all boasted that they had all at least once made their amorous sovereign happy.
Roderick and the Chevalier kissing hands, hobnobbing with the nobility, and dancing minuets.
RODERICK (V.O.)
There was not a party of the nobility to which the two Irish gentlemen were not invited, and admired, nor where we did not make the brave, the high-born and the beautiful talk to us. There was no man in Europe more gay in spirits, more splendid in personal accomplishment, than young Roderick James.
Roderick and the Chevalier in a comfortable coach, on their way home to bed, pass troops marching out on early parade.
Roderick sinks back into the comfortable cushion and yawns.
RODERICK (V.O.)
What a delightful life did we now lead! I knew I was born a gentleman, from the kindly way in which I took to the business, as business certainly it is.
Roderick in a tub, being washed by a servant.
RODERICK (V.O.)
For though it seems all pleasure, yet I assure any low-bred persons who may chance to read this, that we, their betters, have to work as well as they; though I did not rise until noon, yet had I not been up at play until long past midnight?
His hair being done.
RODERICK (V.O.)
I came into it at once, and as if I had never done anything else all my life. I had a gentleman to wait upon me, a French friseur to dress my hair of a morning.
A candle-lit supper.
RODERICK (V.O.)
I knew the taste of chocolate as by intuition almost, and could distinguish between the right Spanish and the French before I had been a week in my new position.