“Say, rather, my Lord, who are going away; for there is a general flight from Florence. All what hotel folk call good families are hastening off to Rome and Naples.”
“What's the meaning of this, then?”
“It is not very difficult, perhaps, to explain,” said the Jew; “luxuries are only the creations of mere circumstance. The rarity of one land may be the very satiety of another; and the iced-punch that tastes so exquisite at Calcutta would be but sorry tipple at Coppermine River. Hence you will see, my Lord, that the English who come here for wickedness find the place too bad for them. There is no zest to their vice; they shock nobody, they outrage nothing,—in fact, they are only as bad as their neighbors.”
“I suppose it's neither better nor worse than I remember it these dozen years and more?” said Norwood.
“Probably not, my Lord, in fact; but, in outward appearance, it has assuredly degenerated. People behave badly everywhere, but this is the only city in Europe where it is deemed right to do so.”
“Since when have you taken up the trade of moralist, Master Morlache?” said Norwood, with a sneer.
“I 'll answer that question,” broke in D'Esmonde. “Since the exchange on England has fallen to forty-three and a half, Morlache sees his clients diminish, and is consequently as angry with vice as he had been with its opposite, if the same result had come to pass.”
“I own,” said the Jew, with a sneer, “the present order of things is far more profitable to the confessional than to the comptoir.”
“That's the truth, I've no doubt of it,” broke in Norwood, laughing. “A low tariff has given a great impulse to the trade of wickedness.”
“Taking your own illustration, my Lord, we are 'Protectionists,'” said D'Esmonde; “whereas you Protestants are the 'Free-traders' in vice.”