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.
Action and cuts as voice over.
RODERICK (V.O.)
I had rings on my fingers, watches in both my fobs, trinkets, and snuff-boxes, of all sorts, and each outvying the other in elegance.
As described.
RODERICK (V.O.)
I had the finest natural taste for lace and china of any man I ever knew.
Buying horses.
RODERICK (V.O.)
I could judge a horse as well as any dealer in Germany. I could not spell, but I could speak German and French cleverly.
Roderick being fitted for clothes.
RODERICK (V.O.)
I had at least twelve suits of clothes; three richly embroidered with gold, two laced with silver; one of French grey, silver-laced and lined with chinchilla. I had damask morning robes, to which a peacock's tail is as sober as a Quaker's drab skirt.
Action as voice over.
RODERICK (V.O.)
I took lessons on the guitar, and sang French catches exquisitely. Where, in fact, was there a more accomplished gentleman than Roderick James?
Action as per voice over.
RODERICK (V.O.)
How have we had the best blood, and the brightest eyes, too, of Europe throbbing round the table as I and the Chevalier have held the cards and the bank against some terrible player, who was matching some thousands out of his millions against our all which was there on the baize!
Roderick dealing a faro bank.
RODERICK (V.O.)
Our principles were: play grandly, honorably. Be not, of course, cast down at losing; but, above all, be not eager at winning, as mean souls are.
Action as voice over.
RODERICK (V.O.)
When the Duke of Courland brought fourteen lackeys each with bags of florins, and challenged our bank to play against the sealed bags, what did we ask?
CHEVALIER
Sir, we have but eighty thousand florins in bank, or two hundred thousand at three months; if your highness' bags do not contain more than eight thousand, we will meet you.
Playing.
RODERICK (V.O.)
And we did, and after eleven hours play, in which our bank was at one time reduced to two hundred and three ducats, we won seventeen thousand florins off him.
Four crowned heads look on at the game, and an imperial princess, when Roderick turns up the ace of hearts, bursts into tears.
Roderick and a girl.
RODERICK (V.O.)
Nor need I mention my successes among the fairer portion of the creation. One of the most accomplished, the tallest, the most athletic, and the handsomest gentleman in Europe, as I was then, a young fellow of my figure could not fail of having advantages, which a person of my spirit knew very well how to us.
Making love to a masked lady.
RODERICK (V.O.)
Charming Schuvaloff.
RODERICK (V.O.)
Black-eyed Sczortarska.
RODERICK (V.O.)
Dark Valdez.
RODERICK
Do you expect me to believe that your lover brought you here tonight?
VALDEZ
Yes. He brought me in his carriage, and he will call for me at midnight.
RODERICK
And he doesn't care about me?