I.—Not so good.
He.—Let your daughter have masters.
I.—Not yet; it is her mother who looks to her education, for one must have peace in one’s house.
He.—Peace in one’s house? You have only that, when you are either master or servant, and it should be master. I had a wife—may heaven bless her soul—but when it happened sometimes that she played malapert, I used to mount the high horse, and bring out my thunder. I used to say like the Creator: Let there be light, and there was light. So for four years we had not ten times in all one word higher than another. How old is your child?
I.—That has nothing to do with the matter.
He.—How old is your child, I say?
I.—The devil take you, leave my child and her age alone, and return to the master she is to have.
He.—I know nothing so pig-headed as a philosopher. In all humility and supplication, might one not know from his highness the philosopher, about what age her ladyship, his daughter, may be?
I.—I suppose she is eight.
He.—Eight! Then four years ago she ought to have had her fingers on the keys.