When the younger Colman obtained a day-rule from the King's Bench, in 1811, to dine at Carlton House, whither he was conveyed by the Duke of York, dramatic literature was not so pleasantly represented as the stage had previously been in the persons of Charles Bannister and his comrades. The guest behaved like a boor, the host still like a gentleman. Among the offensive queries put by the former to the Duke, was--"Who is that fine-looking fellow at the head of the table?" The Duke urged him to be silent, lest he get into a scrape. Colman would not be anything but ruffianly, and raising his voice, he exclaimed,--"No! no! I want to know who that fine square-shouldered magnificent-looking, agreeable fellow is, at the end of the table!" The Duke remonstrated; saying, "You know it is the Prince." "Why, then," said George, "he is your elder brother! I declare he doesn't look half your age. Well! I remember the time when he sang a good song, and as I'm out for a lark, for one day only, he will not refuse an old playfellow, if he is the same good fellow that he used to be." The Prince, with more condescension than was warrantable, laughed, and then sang a song, which, being done, Colman roared out applause at the magnificent voice, and with a round oath, expressed his determination to engage the singer for the next season at his own theatre! Peake, who tells the story in fuller detail, in his _Memoirs of the Colman Family_, adds that the Prince was not offended, and that Colman was, subsequently, his guest. If so, the former had forgotten, since Charles Bannister's days, that propriety which the actor so justly admired.