LAURA. The accounts?

CAPTAIN. Yes.

LAURA. Am I to keep accounts now?

CAPTAIN. Of course you are to keep accounts. Our affairs are in a
precarious condition, and in case of a liquidation, accounts are
necessary, or one is liable to punishment for being careless.

LAURA. It's not my fault that our affairs are in a precarious
condition.

CAPTAIN. That is exactly what the accounts will decide.

LAURA. It's not my fault that our tenant doesn't pay.

CAPTAIN. Who recommended this tenant so warmly? You! Why did you
recommend a--good-for-nothing, we'll call him?

LAURA. But why did you rent to this good-for-nothing?

CAPTAIN. Because I was not allowed to eat in peace, nor sleep in
peace, nor work in peace, till you women got that man here. You
wanted him so that your brother might be rid of him, your mother
wanted him because I didn't want him, the governess wanted him
because he reads his Bible, and old Margret because she had known
his grandmother from childhood. That's why he was taken, and if he
hadn't been taken, I'd be in a madhouse by now or lying in my
grave. However, here is the housekeeping money and your pin money.