After all, there is something in it."
"I think so, indeed! The head clerk spoke of more than a million, including
the value of the business."
"More than a million!"
"It is said that he has been gambling in stocks secretly with Commandant
Robert, and that he has made much money."
"Not to speak of his living like a curmudgeon."
"But these misers, when once they begin to spend money, become as prodigal
as they were once mean."
"Well, I agree with Chalamel; I think that now the governor is coming out."
"And he would be most stupendously in the wrong not to bury himself in
voluptuousness, and not to plunge into the delights of Golconda, if he has
the means; for, as the misty Ossian says, in the grotto of Fingal,
"'All-Ariel is it, yet not-arial, too,
That he should still be right,
Who roseate tapestry has in open view,
And of his gold makes light.'"
"I demand the head of Chalamel!"
"It is absurd!"
"Yes, and the governor looks very much like a man who thinks of amusing
himself. He has a face that might cause the devil to appear on earth."
"And then the cure, who boasts of his charity!"
"Well-ordered charity begins at home."
"You do not know your ten commandments, heathen! If the governor asks from
himself the alms of great pleasures, it is his duty to grant them."
"What astonishes me is, that this intimate friend, who seems to have
dropped from the clouds, never leaves him.
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