"How? Explain yourself!"
"Well, I do not ask you for a yearly allowance, ce serait bien fatigant for us both. My proposal is that you pay my debts in a lump sum, and there shall be peace between us."
"Hum! Most magnanimous! And if I do not pay them, I suppose war will be declared?"
"Come, come, my dear uncle! You are pleased to be facetious! Not pay, do you say! Why, 'tis
only a matter of one or two hundred thousand livres or so, a mere bagatelle to you."
"Well, my dear Mr. Nephew, I much regret that you think so lightly of the estate which was won by the valour of your ancestors, but I am quite unable to help you. I also am in want of cash. I also squander it on follies, but on follies of purely home growth. I have a whole mob of comrades, heydukes and ne'er-do-weels, at my heels, and anything over and above what I spend on them, I scatter among the bumpkins who till my fields, or, if a foolish whim seize me, I build me a bridge from one hill to another. But I certainly do not waste my substance on opera-dancers, nor am I given to abducting Moorish princesses, or clambering up pyramids. If you like eating and drinking, you shall always have as much as you like of both at my house, and you may also choose you there pretty girls to your heart's content, who will look every bit as picturesque as your Morocco princesses, if only you trick them out finely enough. Moreover, if you have a mind to travel, this kingdom is quite big enough. You can ride in your carriage for eight days at a stretch without getting to the end of my property. But send money abroad I will not; we don't carry water to the Danube."
The young gentleman began to lose patience during the course of this lecture, turning incessantly in his chair and wriggling backwards and forwards.
"I don't ask for a gift, you know," he exclaimed at last, "but only for a payment in advance."
"What! a payment in advance! You want me to part with my very skin, I suppose?"
"Eh!" cried Abellino, impatiently, and his face began to wear an impertinent, contemptuous expression. "'Tis mine, you know, practically, or