"Serious! I believe you, Condesa. It has cost me three million dollars already. Do you think three millions are not a serious matter?"
His fair advisers looked at each other, dazzled by the enormous sums this man could handle.
"But do you not expect to get some interest on your millions?" asked Lola, who flattered herself she knew something of business.
The Duke again roared with laughter.
"Oh no, Señora, of course not. I shall leave that in the road for the first passer by. Interest indeed!" Then suddenly turning serious, he went on: "Who the devil has been putting this nonsense into your heads? I tell you, ladies, that what is lacking here—sadly lacking—is sound morality. Make the workman soundly moral, and all the evils you have seen will disappear. Let him give up drink, give up gambling, give up wasting his wages, and all these effects of the mercury will disappear. It is self-evident,"—and he appealed to some of the gentlemen who had joined the group—"How can a man resist the effects of mining when his body, instead of food, be it what it may, contains a gallon of bad brandy? I am perfectly convinced that the majority of those on the sick list are confirmed drunkards. Do you know, gentlemen, that in Riosa thrift is a thing unknown—thrift, without which prosperity and comfort are an impossibility?"
This was a maxim the Duke had frequently heard in the senate; he reiterated it with much emphasis and conviction.
"But how do you expect thrift on two pesetas[G] a day?" the Condesa ventured to demur.
"There is no difficulty at all," said the Duke. "Thrift is a matter of principle, the principle of saving something out of to-day's enjoyment to avoid the needs of to-morrow. Two pesetas to a workman are like two thousand to you. Cannot you save something out of two thousand? Well, so can he out of two. Say he has less, fifteen centimes, ten, five. The point is to put something aside, and that, however little, is to the good."
"Merciful Heaven!" the Condesa sighed, "What I do not understand is how any one can live on two pesetas, much less save."
The engineers of the works invited the party to inspect the machine-room and laboratory. There was here a remarkably fine microscope, which attracted general attention. The doctor was the person who used it most, devoting much of his time to investigations in histology. The manager requested him to show the Duke's guests some of his preparations. First he exhibited some diatoms—the ladies were charmed by their various forms; he also showed them specimens of the animalcule which wrought the destruction of the famous bridge at Milan; they could not cease marvelling that so minute a creature should be able to demolish so huge a structure.