"I assure you, monsieur, that I do not need payment in advance."
"Times are so hard yet."
"Very hard, indeed, the times are; that's true, monsieur; we must hope for better."
"Admit it, my dear Monsieur Lebrenn," said the Count, again pointing to the pictures that ornamented the walls of the salon, "the times in which those redoubtable seigneurs lived, were the real good times!"
"Truly so, monsieur."
"And who knows! Perhaps those better times may come back again!"
"Indeed! Do you think so?"
"Some other day we shall talk politics—I suppose you talk politics, occasionally?"
"Monsieur, I do not indulge myself so far. You understand, a merchant—"
"Oh, my dear Monsieur Lebrenn! You are a man of the good old pattern; that's what you are; I'm glad of it! Right you are not to meddle in politics! It is the silly mania that spoiled everything. In those good old times, that I was speaking about to you, nobody grumbled. The King, the clergy and the nobility ordered—and everybody obeyed without saying a word."