Michiel. Would you go and tell tales, just because I have a little more sense than the master? He will get us all into trouble before he’s done, because he can’t give and take.
Maria. Then both of you taken together ought to make a man after your own heart. If you ask any of the poor people hereabouts, they will tell you whether or not he knows how to give; and if you were in his place, you would certainly do nothing but take.
Michiel. Yes; having is having, but getting’s the trick! Much good has the master done himself, with all his giving away. Then you have the King; what numbers of people he has helped out of his own pocket-money! And what has he gained by it? Nothing! They are breaking his window-panes with his own three-guilder pieces!
Maria. Would you follow the example of such ungrateful wretches?
Michiel. Just now the question is, What pays best? And if we are ever to be man and wife, it will surely be necessary to scrape a little money together first, if we want to live like decent people.
Maria. We man and wife! You may make your mind easy on that point!
Michiel. It’s not to be? Very good—you’ll change your mind some day, and come asking me on your bare knees to make you my wife,—some day when I’m a great lord, just like the man with the whale,[[27]] who is now a general among the Brabanters.
Maria. If being a fool and a scoundrel is enough to give a man high rank among the rebels, you will have plenty of chances; but I won’t talk to you any more.
Michiel. Have you anything more to say? Because, if not, I’ll go to sleep again.
Maria. Nothing but this, that for the present, not being a general as yet, you might go to Peter Kluisken’s and fetch the pig that the master has bought.