honors us. There is nothing, in my opinion, that pays us better for
all our fatigue; and it is an exquisite delight to receive the
praises of the well-informed.

MUSIC MASTER: I agree, and I enjoy them as you do. There is surely
nothing more agreeable than the applause you speak of; but that
incense does not provide a living. Pure praises do not provide a
comfortable existence; it is necessary to add something solid, and
the best way to praise is to praise with cash-in-hand. He's a man,
it's true, whose insight is very slight, who talks nonsense about
everything and applauds only for the wrong reasons but his money
makes up for his judgments. He has discernment in his purse. His
praises are in cash, and this ignorant bourgeois is worth more to
us, as you see, than the educated nobleman who introduced us here.

DANCING MASTER: There is some truth in what you say; but I find
that you lean a little too heavily on money; and material interest
is something so base that a man of good taste should never show an
attachment to it.

MUSIC MASTER: You are ready enough to receive the money our man
gives you.

DANCING MASTER: Assuredly; but I don't place all my happiness in
it, and I could wish that together with his fortune he had some
good taste in things.

MUSIC MASTER: I could wish it too, that's what both of us are
working for as much as we can. But, in any case, he gives us the
means to make ourselves known in the world; and he will pay others