COUNTESS. Your reply reminds me of the object of your visit. The Prussians are very proud of the manufactory which has claimed the attention of the king.
WEDGEWOOD.
Oh, how I long to see the great Frederick!
COUNTESS.
You will like him, I am confident.
WEDGEWOOD. I don't know that. I don't at all fancy his edict.—What! marry a parcel of handsome, innocent, industrious girls to his great whiskered horse-guards, whether they will or no? It's a piece of moral turpitude—an insult to common sense—and infamously odd—
FREDERICA (advancing.) Have a care, Mr. Wedgewood—have a care how you talk about the king. He possesses a sort of magical ubiquity—and is here, there, and every where at the same moment.
WEDGEWOOD.
How does he manage that?
FREDERICA. He wanders about in secrecy and disguise—enters all kinds of mansions—and often over-hears conversations that were never intended for the court. By this means, it is said, he gathers information from every nook and corner of his kingdom.
WEDGEWOOD.
Strange kind of hocus-pocus work for a monarch!—Peripatetically odd!
ALBERT. I have been told that he knows more of the character and condition of his subjects and soldiers than they do themselves.
COUNTESS. And he never knows of a wrong done among his people that he does not instantly redress—though it often puzzles them to learn how he arrives at his knowledge of the facts. Many think him a wizard.