"Can I value them, yes, can I value any of them all?" answered George
William passionately. "When we will prove nothing by deeds, then we make
speeches, and when we are disobedient in act, then we asseverate with
words of love and reverence. Speak, then, Balthazar von Schlieben, since
you have been thus commissioned by the Electoral Prince. What is this most
weighty of reasons which forbids the departure of the Electoral Prince
from Holland?"

"Your Electoral Highness, it is debt, it is the total want of money."

The Elector started up as if an adder had stung him. "Debts!" he cried in
thundering voice. "Want of money! Will this litany never, never cease?
What a wild, extravagant life the Electoral Prince must lead to be for
ever and ever wanting money, and no sooner are his debts paid than he
contracts new ones!"

"Husband," said the Electress soothingly, "it does not reflect upon the
life our son leads that he is out of money, but proves that he has not
received a sufficiently ample allowance. Just reflect that three years
ago, when he undertook this journey to Holland, you did not give him a red
cent, and that I had to give him from my little savings three thousand
dollars that he might be able to travel at all.[6] A considerable portion
of this must have been expended during the tedious journey, with his
retinue."

"If any one were to listen to you, Electress, he would really suppose that
the Electoral Prince had lived upon those three thousand dollars lent him
by you from that time up to the present. You forget, however, that,
already in the year 1636, therefore the very next year after the Electoral