"I'm too poverty-stricken to turn up my nose at anything. I'd marry a barmaid if she only had sufficient of the needful."
"Don't talk nonsense, Gervase, I thought you were really fond of Madeline, apart from her money."
"So I am. She's awfully pretty, there's no denying that. But I'm too old to break my heart over any woman. It's the tin—or the lack of it—that is troubling me."
"You'll have to curtail your expenses, Gervase; there's nothing else for it. I cannot possibly increase your allowance. The fact is, we shall have to economise all round."
"I'm always economising," was the angry retort. "It's been pinch and grind ever since I was born."
"That's not my fault, my boy. I'm getting the biggest rents I can possibly squeeze out of the tenants as it is, and there's no chance of things mending unless we can get Protection."
"And that we may whistle for."
"Because the people have got educated. An awful mistake, I say, to educate the working classes. An ignorant proletariat you may hoodwink and bamboozle to your heart's content; but no enlightened community is going to consent to have its bread taxed for the benefit of the landowners."
"The people will have to be shown it's for their benefit. That's the game to play."