it's my father you're speaking of. He was not mad, he
was just," said Jock, reddening. "What's mad in it? You've got a great
fortune--far more than you want. It all came out of other people's
pockets somehow. Oh, of course, not in a dishonest way. That is the
worst of speaking to a girl that doesn't understand political economy
and the laws of production. Of course it must come out of other people's
pockets. If I sell anything and get a profit (and nobody would sell
anything if they didn't get a profit), of course that comes out of your
pocket. Well, now, I've got a great deal more than I want, and I say you
shall have some of it back."

"And I say," cried Bice, making him a curtsey, "Merci Monsieur! Grazia
Signor! oh thank you, thank you very much--as much as you like, sir, as
much as you like! but all the same I think you are mad. Your money! all
that makes you happy and great----"

"Money," said Jock, loftily, "makes nobody happy. It may make you
comfortable. It gives you fine houses, horses and carriages, and all
that sort of thing. So it will do to the other people to whom it goes;
so it is wisdom to divide it, for the more good you can get out of it
the better. Lucy has money lying in the bank--or somewhere--that she
does not want, that does her no good; and there is some one else" (a
fellow I know, Jock added in a parenthesis), "who has not got enough to
live upon. So you see she just hands over what she doesn't want to him,
and that's better for both. So far from being mad, it's"--Jock paused
for a word--"it's philosophy, it's wisdom, it's statesmanship. It is
just the grandest way that was ever invented for putting things
straight."

Bice looked at him with a sort of incredulous cynical gaze--as if asking
whether he meant her to believe this fiction--whether perhaps he was
such a fool as to think that she could be persuaded to believe it. It
was evident that she did not for a moment suppose him to be serious. She
laughed at last in ridicule and scorn. "You think," she said, "I know so
little. Ah, I know a great deal more than that. What are you without
money? You are nobody. The more you have, so much more have you
everything at your command. Without money you are nobody. Yes, you may
be a prince or an English milord, but that is nothing without money. Oh
yes! I have known princes that had nothing and the people laughed at
them. And a milord who is poor--the very donkey-boys scorn him. You can
do nothing wi