“For the same reason that a joint stock company has only one managing director. If the wife administered as well, the children would claim the same right, for it is their property, too.”
“This is mere hair-splitting. I think it’s hard that I should have to ask your permission to buy a piano out of my own money.”
“It’s no longer your money.”
“But yours?”
“No, not mine either, but the family’s. And you are wrong when you say that you ‘have to ask for my permission’; it’s merely wise that you should consult with the administrator as to whether the position of affairs warrants your spending such a large sum on a luxury.”
“Do you call a piano a luxury?”
“A new piano, when there is an old one, must be termed a luxury. The position of our affairs is anything but satisfactory, and therefore it doesn’t permit you to buy a new piano at present, but I, personally, can or will have nothing to say against it.”
“An expenditure of a thousand crowns doesn’t mean ruin.”
“To incur a debt of a thousand crowns at the wrong time may be the first step towards ruin.”
“All this means that you refuse to buy me a new piano?”