JAC. Now I am at your service. HAR. I have engaged myself, Master Jacques, to give a supper to-night. JAC. (_aside_). Wonderful! HAR. Tell me, can you give us a good supper? JAC. Yes, if you give me plenty of money. HAR. The deuce! Always money! I think they have nothing else to say except money, money, money! Always that same word in their mouth, money! They always speak of money! It's their pillow companion, money! VAL. Never did I hear such an impertinent answer! Would you call it wonderful to provide good cheer with plenty of money? Is it not the easiest thing in the world? The most stupid could do as much. But a clever man should talk of a good supper with little money. JAC. A good supper with little money? VAL. Yes. JAC. (_to_ VALÈRE). Indeed, Mr. Steward, you will oblige me greatly by telling me your secret, and also, if you like, by filling my place as cook; for you keep on meddling here, and want to be everything. HAR. Hold your tongue. What shall we want? JAC. Ask that of Mr. Steward, who will give you good cheer with little money. HAR. Do you hear? I am speaking to you, and expect you to answer me. JAC. How many will there be at your table? HAR. Eight or ten; but you must only reckon for eight. When there is enough for eight, there is enough for ten. VAL. That is evident. JAC. Very well, then; you must have four tureens of soup and five side dishes; soups, entrées ... HAR. What! do you mean to feed a whole town? JAC. Roast ... HAR. (_clapping his hand on_ MASTER JACQUES' _mouth_). Ah! Wretch! you are eating up all my substance. JAC. Entremêts ... HAR. (_again putting his hand on_ JACQUES' _mouth_). More still? VAL. (_to_ JACQUES). Do you mean to kill everybody? And has your master invited people in order to destroy them with over-feeding? Go and read a little the precepts of health, and ask the doctors if there is anything so hurtful to man as excess in eating. HAR. He is perfectly right. VAL. Know, Master Jacques, you and people like you, that a table overloaded with eatables is a real cut-throat; that, to be the true friends of those we invite, frugality should reign throughout the repast we give, and that according to the saying of one of the ancients, "We must eat to live, and not live to eat." HAR. Ah! How well the man speaks! Come near, let me embrace you for this last saying. It is the finest sentence that I have ever heard in my life: "We must live to eat, and not eat to live." No; that isn't it. How do you say it? VAL. That we must eat to live, and not live to eat. HAR. (_to_ MASTER JACQUES). Yes. Do you hear that? (_To_ VALÈRE) Who is the great man who said that? VAL. I do not exactly recollect his name just now. HAR. Remember to write down those words for me. I will have them engraved in letters of gold over the mantel-piece of my dining-room. VAL. I will not fail. As for your supper, you had better let me manage it. I will see that it is all as it should be. HAR. Do so.