The Queen, the Regent's mother, sits not here; Wanting, too, are his sisters, I perceive; And it is well. With the distempered King Immured at Windsor, sore distraught or dying, It borders nigh on indecency In their regard, that this loud feast is kept, A thought not strange to many, as I read, Even of those gathered here. SPIRIT IRONIC My dear phantom and crony, the gloom upon their faces is due rather to their having borrowed those diamonds at eleven per cent than to their loyalty to a suffering monarch! But let us test the feeling. I'll spread a report. [He calls up the SPIRIT OF RUMOUR, who scatters whispers through the assemblage.] A GUEST [to his neighbour] Have you heard this report--that the King is dead? ANOTHER GUEST It has just reached me from the other side. Can it be true? THIRD GUEST I think it probable. He has been very ill all week. PRINCE REGENT Dead? Then my fete is spoilt, by God! SHERIDAN Long live the King! [He holds up his glass and bows to the Regent.] MARCHIONESS OF HERTFORD [the new favourite, to the Regent] The news is more natural than the moment of it! It is too cruel to you that it should happen now! PRINCE REGENT Damn me, though; can it be true? [He provisionally throws a regal air into his countenance.] DUCHESS OF YORK [on the Regent's left] I hardly can believe it. This forenoon He was reported mending. DUCHESS OF ANGOULEME [on the Regent's right] On this side They are asserting that the news is false-- That Buonaparte's child, the “King of Rome,” Is dead, and not your royal father, sire. PRINCE REGENT That's mighty fortunate! Had it been true, I should have been abused by all the world-- The Queen the keenest of the chorus, too-- Though I have been postponing this pledged feast Through days and weeks, in hopes the King would mend, Till expectation fusted with delay. But give a dog a bad name--or a Prince! So, then, it is new-come King of Rome Who has passed or ever the world has welcomed him!... Call him a king--that pompous upstart's son-- Beside us scions of the ancient lines! DUKE OF BEDFORD I think that rumour untrue also, sir. I heard it as I drove up from Woburn this evening, and it was contradicted then. PRINCE REGENT Drove up this evening, did ye, Duke. Why did you cut it so close? DUKE OF BEDFORD Well, it so happened that my sheep-sheering dinner was fixed for this very day, and I couldn't put it off. So I dined with them there at one o'clock, discussed the sheep, rushed off, drove the two-and-forty miles, jumped into my clothes at my house here, and reached your Royal Highness's door in no very bad time. PRINCE REGENT Capital, capital. But, 'pon my soul, 'twas a close shave!