WIFE. Yes, so I understand. Of course, I've never seen your brother, but I've heard a whole lot.
THURE. Oh, gossip! My brother, the doctor, has gone right across Africa, and that's something everybody can't do. So it doesn't matter how many drinks he took as a young chap——
WIFE. Yes, your brother, the doctor! Who is nothing but a school-teacher, for that matter——
THURE. No, he's a doctor of philosophy, I tell you——
WIFE. Well, that's nothing but one who teaches. And that's just what my brother is doing in the school at Åby.
THURE. Your brother is all right, but he is nothing but a public-school teacher, and that's not the same as a doctor of philosophy—which isn't a boast either.
WIFE. Well, no matter what he is or what you call him, he has cost us a whole lot.
THURE. Of course it has been rather costly, but then he has brought us a lot of pleasure, too.
WIFE. Fine pleasures! When we've got to lose house and home for his sake!
THURE. That's so—but then we don't know yet if his slip-up on the loan had some kind of cause that he couldn't help. I guess it isn't so easy to send registered letters from darkest Africa.