"Ah! that is generally interesting reading. Any fresh discoveries?"
The gentleman in question was an enterprising soul, who had started model farming on the estate committed to his care, but this model farming cost infinitely more than it brought in. Moreover, amongst other things he had started glass-works, sugar-works, a silk-factory, a post-office, laid down fir plantations in drift-sand, not to mention many other wonderful things, all of which had come to grief.
"So that is what comes of your scientific gentlemen taking up economical questions," observed Master Jock, sententiously, when he had laughed heartily over each separate item.
"I humbly crave your honour's pardon," said Peter, "but it is not the scientific but the semi-scientific who do the mischief. Science is one of those poisons of which a good deal cures but a little kills."
"Well, well, let us go on with the rest. What is that slender little bundle over there?"
"That is the report of the lessee of the opal mines. He has paid the four thousand florins rent in precious stones, which we could have bought in the market for a thousand florins, if we had paid cash for them."
"But what is the poor man to do? He must live. I know he has children to support."
"But there was a merchant here from Galicia a little time ago who looked at the mine and offered twenty thousand florins rent for it straight off."
"What? Would you have me give the mine to a man from Galicia—to a foreigner? Not if he paid me for it with the stars of heaven! Let us stick by the old agreement. What is that other bundle?"