LUC. How comes it? I am Empress Dowager Of China--yet was never crown’d. This must Be seen to. [Quickly gathers some straw and weaves a crown, which she puts on.] SAV. O, what a degringolade! The great career I had mapp’d out for me-- Nipp’d i’ the bud. What life, when I come out, Awaits me? Why, the very Novices And callow Postulants will draw aside As I pass by, and say ‘That man hath done Time!’ And yet shall I wince? The worst of Time Is not in having done it, but in doing ‘t. LUC. Ha, ha, ha, ha! Eleven billion pig-tails Do tremble at my nod imperial,-- The which is as it should be. SAV. I have heard That gaolers oft are willing to carouse With them they watch o’er, and do sink at last Into a drunken sleep, and then’s the time To snatch the keys and make a bid for freedom. Gaoler! Ho, Gaoler! [Sounds of lock being turned and bolts withdrawn. Enter the Borgias’ FOOL, in plain clothes, carrying bunch of keys.] I have seen thy face Before. FOOL I saved thy life this afternoon, Sir. SAV. Thou art the Borgias’ Fool? FOOL Say rather, was. Unfortunately I have been discharg’d For my betrayal of Lucrezia, So that I have to speak like other men-- Decasyllabically, and with sense. An hour ago the gaoler of this dungeon Died of an apoplexy. Hearing which, I ask’d for and obtain’d his billet.