BRIGNAC [glass in hand] In one way I’m of your mind. I firmly believe that drink is a social evil, and I fight against it. For poor people, who are underfed and drink adulterated stuff. That’s different. There you’re right. But alcohol is only bad on an empty stomach.
HOURTIN. Poor empty stomachs. But why don’t you preach sobriety to them, instead of inciting them to have children?
BRIGNAC. Don’t you approve of that?
HOURTIN. My own opinion is that the poor and the sick have too many children and the rich not enough.
BRIGNAC. But—[To Josephine, who enters] What is it?
HOURTIN. Then I’ll be going. [To Lucie] Till tomorrow.
BRIGNAC [to Josephine] Shew him in. [To Hourtin] Wait a moment—five minutes—two minutes only. I’ll shew you a workman who has twelve children. Let’s see what you say to that. [To Féchain] Come in, my friend, come in.
Enter Féchain, a man of fifty, dressed in a workman’s Sunday clothes. Where he stands on coming in he is unable to see Hourtin.
FÉCHAIN. Good day, ladies and gentlemen.
LUCIE [to Madeleine] What a gay old thing!