your salary? Figures! figures, my boy! Facts!"

"I do translations at ten crowns a sheet; I give French lessons, I am
promised proof-correcting...."

"Promises aren't facts! Figures, my boy! Figures! Look here, now, I'll
put it down. What are you translating?"

"What am I translating? I can't tell you straight off."

"You can't tell me straight off? You are engaged on a translation, you
say; can't you tell me what it is? Don't talk such rubbish!"

"I am translating Guizot's _History of Civilisation_, twenty-five
sheets."

"At ten crowns a sheet makes two hundred and fifty crowns. And then?"

"And then? How can I tell beforehand?"

"Indeed, can't you tell beforehand? But you ought to know. You seem to
imagine that being married simply means living together and amusing
yourselves! No, my dear boy, there will be children, and children
require feeding and clothing."

"There needn't be babies directly, if one loves _as we love_ one
another."

"How the dickens do you love one another?"