The Drunken Feathers

Scene xiv

The PRINCE OF WALES and DUKE OF YORK are shown in Brook's Club, London, several weeks later; thus, the words "Brook's Club, London" appear. The DUKE OF YORK is showing the PRINCE OF WALES how to gamble by having him play rounds of Hazard, which the latter is losing.

PRINCE OF WALES: [Watching the game] Come on, come on! Yes, yes! No, goddammit! Oh, damn it all!

DUKE OF YORK: Lost again, have you?

PRINCE OF WALES: For the fourth time around. I am not a gaming man, Frederick; there is little use trying to make one of me. But perhaps I can make a drinking man of you.

He hands the DUKE OF YORK his bottle of brandy, which the latter takes a sip of, only to cough profusely.

PRINCE OF WALES: [Laughing] What did they allow you in Hanover, a single glass of port wine a year?

DUKE OF YORK: They would rather us smoke than drink; smoking does not cloud the brain, they say.

PRINCE OF WALES: Smoking is a filthy practice. I only scarcely engage in it. 

The PRINCE OF WALES drinks his brandy as the DUKE OF YORK continues to gamble his money away at Hazard. Across the club, FOX and SHERIDAN decide to play several rounds of hazard.

FOX: You say you haven't played Hazard before, Richard?

SHERIDAN: I am familiar with Quinze, but not Hazard. Do they share any similarities?

FOX: [Looking ahead] Oh, no.

SHERIDAN: What, are the rules complicated?

FOX: [Whispering] Look there.

FOX nods toward the PRINCE OF WALES and DUKE OF YORK.

SHERIDAN: Why, 'tis Prinny and another royal-looking gentleman.

FOX: His brother, the Duke of York; recently completed his military training in Hanover, so I hear. I shall avoid them, cut them if I must. The only thing in the world worse than one Prinny is two of them.

SHERIDAN: The Duke might be the exact opposite of his brother.

FOX: Fah! All royals are one and the same— spoiled, extravagant, greedy, and careless— entirely at the expense of the common people, who toil and labor, day after day without even the scent of luxury to which royals have long been accustomed.

SHERIDAN: Your Whig is showing.

FOX: I don't care. I am fed up with these posh aristocrats, and I shan't have anything more to do with them.

SHERIDAN: Even if they are advantageous to our Party?

FOX: Advantageous? Prinny nearly ruined us last Spring! [Whispering] Had a marriage certificate been discovered—

SHERIDAN: But one wasn't.

FOX: Why do you defend him?

SHERIDAN: I do not. In fact, I would scarcely see him at all were it not for Mrs. Fitzherbert; we have grown fond of each other, and I might even call her a friend. Besides, no other MP will defend her, so that responsibility has been left to me.

FOX: And why should we defend her? That woman is a temptress and a wretch. Had she agreed to be Prinny's mistress, marriage would have never entered his head, and he would have forgotten her within a month or two.

SHERIDAN: You cannot blame the lady for Prinny's relentlessly passionate disposition.

FOX: I also blame him, and so I have made every point of avoiding him.

SHERIDAN: Charles, you know you are obligated to be his friend for the sake of retaining his political support!

FOX: This damned alliance has brought us more scandal than we can bear. I cannot afford the chance of defending his lies in the House again.

SHERIDAN: But we must be in his favor when he inherits the throne, which might happen sooner than we expect!

FOX: Richard, the King is in perfect health! We'll likely never live to see such an opportunity.

Cut to ACT II, SCENE XV.