“Very well, Frau Frohmann; very well indeed. Pray do not suppose that I mean anything to the contrary. But though you haven’t got into the way of using gold money yourself, the world all around you has done so; and, of course, if meat is dear at Munich because gold won’t buy so much there as it used to do, meat will be dearer also at Innsbruck, even though you continue to pay for it with bank-notes.” “It is dearer, sir, no doubt,” said the Frau, shaking her head. She had endeavoured to contest that point gallantly, but had been beaten by the conduct of the two butchers. The higher prices of Hoff at Innsbruck had become at any rate better than the lower prices of that deceitful enemy at Brixen. “It is dearer. For the world generally that may suffice. Your friend’s doctrine is quite enough for the world at large. Swim with the stream. In buying and selling,--what we call trade,--things arrange themselves so subtly, that we are often driven to accept them without quite knowing why they are so. Then we can only swim with the stream. But, in this matter, if you want to find out the cause, if you cannot satisfy your mind without knowing why it is that you must pay more for everything, and must, therefore, charge more to other people, it is because the gold which your notes represent has become more common in the world during the last thirty years.” She did want to know. She was not satisfied to swim with the stream as Hoff had done, not caring to inquire, but simply feeling sure that as things were so, so they must be. That such changes should take place had gone much against the grain of her conservative nature. She, in her own mind, had attributed these pestilently increased expenses to elongated petticoats, French bonnets, swallow-tailed coats, and a taste for sour wine. She had imagined that Josephine Bull might have been contented with the old price for her eggs if she would also be contented with the old raiment and the old food. Grounding her resolutions on that belief, she had endeavoured not only to resist further changes, but even to go back to the good old times. But she now was quite aware that in doing so she had endeavoured to swim against the stream. Whether it ought to be so or not, she was not as yet quite sure, but she was becoming sure that such was the fact, and that the fact was too strong for her to combat.