The Farrier

SCENE VI.

It is you then, Mr. La Bride?

Good day, friend Marcel: how is it going?

Like business, sometimes good, sometimes bad.

I have come to settle your account: have you put the articles in order?

The articles are in my head. Do you not think I pay a clerk to keep my books for me? That is fine for financiers.

One sees there more than one great simpleton,
Leaning over the back of a chair,
Waiting for the hour of the meal,
Engaging in idle chatter,
And putting at the expense of an arm
An entire lazy body at its ease.

As for me, I use both my arms, and I am the better for it: work is a merchant who keeps a shop of health, and who never deceives his customers.

Especially when they satisfy him as exactly as you do. But what if we had a drink on top of that.

Willingly, the reflection is good; I was forgetting the main thing. Claudine, go fetch us a bottle of the best in the cellar, and rinse the glasses.