These last phrases he rattled off like a lesson with no sort of unction: it was evidently a form. He then continued: “I have little rivulets running by my trees. He-from-whom-I-bought had let them go dry; I nurtured them till they sparkled. They feed the roots of my orchard. I am very rich. Some let their walls fall down; I prop them up; nay, sometimes I rebuild. All my roofs are tiled with tiles from Marseilles.... I am very rich.” Then I took up the psalm in my turn, and I said: “What is it to be rich if you are not also famous? Can you sing or dance or make men laugh or cry by your recitals? I will not ask if you can draw or sculpture, for your religion forbids it, but do you play the instrument or the flute? Can you put together wise phrases which are repeated by others?” To this he answered quite readily: “I have not yet attempted to do any of these things you mention: doubtless were I to try them I should succeed, for I have become very rich, and a man who is rich in money from his own labour could have made himself rich in any other thing.” When he said this I appreciated from whence such a doctrine had invaded England. It had come from the Orientals. I listened to him as he went on: “But it is no matter; my farm is enough for me. If there were no men with farms, who would pay for the flute and the instrument and the wise beggar and the rest? Ah! who would feed them?” “None,” said I, “you are quite right.” So we went quickly forward for a long time under the darkness, saying nothing more until a thought moved him. “My father was rich,” he said, “but I am far richer than my father.” It was cold, and I remembered what a terrible way I had to go that night—twenty miles or more through this empty land of Africa. So I was shivering as I answered: “Your father did well in his day, and through him you are rich. It says, ‘Revere your father: God is not more to you.’” He answered: “You speak sensibly; I have sons.” Then for some time more we rode along upon the high wheels.