"Yes, they ought," said the Englishman, "but somehow they're not steady of themselves: they get pauperised."
"What is that?" said the Andorran.
"Why, they get to expect things for nothing."
"They think," said the Andorran cheerfully, "that good things fall from the sky. I know that sort: we have them." He thought he had begun to understand, and just after he had said this we came to a village.
I must here tell you what I ought to have put at the beginning of these few lines, that I heard this conversation in Andorra valley itself, while four of us, the Andorran guide, the Englishman, myself and an Ironist were proceeding through the mountains, riding upon mules.
We had come to the village of Encamps, and there we all got down to enter the inn. We had a meal together and paid, the four of us, exactly five shillings and threepence all together for wine and bread, cooked meat, plenty of vegetables, coffee, liqueurs and a cigar.
This was the end of the conversation in Andorra: it was my business to return to England after the holiday to write an essay on a point in political economy, to which I did justice; but the conventions of academic writing prevented me from quoting in that essay this remarkable experience.