CAPTAIN. Of course you are to keep accounts. Our affairs are in a precarious condition, and in case of a liquidation, accounts are necessary, or one is liable to punishment for being careless.
LAURA. It's not my fault that our affairs are in a precarious condition.
CAPTAIN. That is exactly what the accounts will decide.
LAURA. It's not my fault that our tenant doesn't pay.
CAPTAIN. Who recommended this tenant so warmly? You! Why did you recommend a—good-for-nothing, we'll call him?
LAURA. But why did you rent to this good-for-nothing?
CAPTAIN. Because I was not allowed to eat in peace, nor sleep in peace, nor work in peace, till you women got that man here. You wanted him so that your brother might be rid of him, your mother wanted him because I didn't want him, the governess wanted him because he reads his Bible, and old Margret because she had known his grandmother from childhood. That's why he was taken, and if he hadn't been taken, I'd be in a madhouse by now or lying in my grave. However, here is the housekeeping money and your pin money. You may give me the accounts later.
LAURA [Curtesies.] Thanks so much. Do you too keep an account of what you spend besides the housekeeping money?
CAPTAIN. That doesn't concern you.
LAURA. No, that's true—just as little as my child's education concerns me. Have the gentlemen come to a decision after this evening's conference?