mony. Please to take a
seat.

De la Brive (sitting on a sofa)
I am grateful for your confidence.

Mercadet
I am seeking information with regard to a debtor, who, like you, lives
in the neighborhood of Bordeaux.

De la Brive
I know every one in that district.

Mercadet
It is said he has relations there.

De la Brive
Relations! I have none but an old aunt.

Mercadet (pricking up his ears)
An--old aunt--?

De la Brive
Whose health--

Mercadet (trembling)
Is--is--delicate?

De la Brive
And her income is forty thousand francs.

Mercadet (quite overcome)
Good Lord! The very figure!

De la Brive
The Marchioness, you see, will be a good woman to have on hand. I mean
the Marchioness--

Mercadet (vehemently rushing at him)
Of Bourdillac, sir!

De la Brive
How is this? Do you know her name?

Mercadet
Yes, and yours too!

De la Brive
The devil you do!

Mercadet
You are head over ears in debt; your furniture is held in another
man's name; your old aunt has a pittance of six hundred francs;
Pierquin, who is one of your smallest creditors, has forty-seven
thousand francs in notes of hand from you. You are Michonnin, and I am
the idiotic nabob!

De la Brive (stretching himself at full length on the sofa)
By heavens! You know just as much about it as I do!

Mercadet
Well--I see that once more the devil has taken a hand in my game.

De la Brive (aside, rising to his feet)
The marriage is over! I am no longer a socialist; I shall become a
communist.

Mercadet
And I have been just as easily deceived, as if I had been on the
Exchange.

De la Brive
Show yourself worthy of your reputation.

Mercadet
M. Michonnin, your conduct is more than blameworthy!

De la Brive
In what particular? Did I not say that I had debts?

Mercadet
We'll let that pass, for any one may have debts; but where is your
estate situated.

De la Brive
In the Landes.

Mercadet
And of what does it consist?

De la Brive
Of sand wastes, planted with firs.

Mercadet
Good to make toothpicks.

De la Brive
That's about it.

Mercadet
And it is worth?

De la Brive
Thirty thousand francs.

Mercadet
And mortgaged for--

De la Brive
Forty-five thousand!

Mercadet
And you had the skill to effect that?

De la Brive
Why, yes--

Mercadet
Damnation! But that was pretty clever! And your marshes, sir?

De la Brive
They border on the sea--

Mercadet
They are part of the ocean!

De la Brive
The people of th