Reiss. Too much modesty.
P. Coun. Your self-denial. For you yourself had the justest claims to all the honours, with which you permitted me to be invested.
Reiss. Audaces fortuna.--I am too old. Now you should enjoy life, my friend. The merchant will endeavour to get a hundred per cent. if he can; why should the statesman sell his labour to the state at three? Away with the silly prejudice, and the retail-trade of your conscientious precepts; carry on your business wholesale, on the sacred principle of self-preservation.
P. Coun. I partly do so, but my father--
Reiss. I have paid the old honest man a visit.
P. Coun. Very kind of you! very kind of you indeed!
Reiss. He persists in his determination of setting the will aside.
P. Coun. Ridiculous!
Reiss. He will not suffer the children to go to the hospital, because the institution is intended for old and decayed people.
P. Coun. Mere formalities, attached to old age!