Mr. Cardan shook his head. “Alas,” he said, “for sordid reasons. You remember what the poet wrote?
I have been in love, in debt and in drink
This many and many a year;
And these are three evils too great, one would think,
For one poor mortal to bear.
’Twas love that first drove me to drinking,
And drinking first drove me to debt,
And though I have struggled and struggled and strove,
I cannot get out of them yet.
There’s nothing but money can cure me