Count—You ought to know better than I, since it is you who have had the running of affairs since your majority.
André—Well then, I do know the expenses; and let me tell you that you have counted up only those that are part of our life in Paris, and you have not said a syllable of those that belong to our country one.
Count—Those that belong to our country one! Those are all just so much economy.
André—So then the place at Vilsac is just so much economy?
Count—Of course. We get everything from it, from eggs up to oxen.
André—Yes, and even to wild boars, when it suits you to shoot one. Now be so good as to consider the place at Vilsac, which you call a matter of economy. First of all, it brings us in absolutely nothing.
Count—It never has brought us in anything.
André—It is mortgaged for two hundred thousand francs.
Count—That happened when I was young.
André—Are you under the impression that there comes a time when mortgages wear themselves out? I wish they did. But I am afraid that you deceive yourself; and in the mean time, you are paying every year a mortgagor's interest. Furthermore, at Vilsac—