“Well, that’s really stupid; to try and recover debts here is too stupid, to my thinking! Go to the surface. Ask my niece—she is my heiress.”
“There’s no asking any one now, and no going anywhere. We have both reached our limit and, before the judgment-seat of God, are equal in our sins.”
“In our sins,” the lady mimicked him contemptuously. “Don’t dare to speak to me.”
“Oh-ho-ho-ho!”
“You see, the shopkeeper obeys the lady, your Excellency.”
“Why shouldn’t he?”
“Why, your Excellency, because, as we all know, things are different here.”
“Different? How?”
“We are dead, so to speak, your Excellency.”
“Oh, yes! But still....”
Well, this is an entertainment, it is a fine show, I must say! If it has come to this down here, what can one expect on the surface? But what a queer business!
