BUTLER.
There has never been a birth-day, nor wedding-day, nor christening-day, celebrated in your family, in which I have not joined with the muses in full chorus.—In forty-six years, three hundred and ninety-seven congratulations on different occasions have dropped from my pen. To-day, the three hundred and ninety-eighth is coming forth;—for heaven has protected our noble master, who has been in great danger.
AMELIA.
Danger! My father in danger! What do you mean?
BUTLER.
One of the gamekeepers has returned to inform the whole castle of a base and knavish trick, of which the world will talk, and my poetry hand down to posterity.
AMELIA.
What, what is all this?
BUTLER.
The baron, my lord and master, in company with the strange Count, had not been gone a mile beyond the lawn, when one of them ——
AMELIA.
What happened? Speak for heaven’s sake.
BUTLER.
My verse shall tell you.
AMELIA.
No, no; tell us in prose.
MR. ANHALT.
Yes, in prose.
BUTLER.
Ah, you have neither of you ever been in love, or you would prefer poetry to prose. But excuse [pulls out a paper] the haste in which it was written. I heard the news in the fields—always have paper and a pencil about me, and composed the whole forty lines crossing the meadows and the park in my way home. [reads.]