“Italian bookkeeping,” said the gentleman of the gray whiskers ironically. “You may keep your books as you like, but if they spoil everything for you, there won’t be any profit.”

“Why do they spoil things? A poor thrashing machine, or your Russian presser, they will break, but my steam press they don’t break. A wretched Russian nag they’ll ruin, but keep good dray-horses⁠—they won’t ruin them. And so it is all round. We must raise our farming to a higher level.”

“Oh, if one only had the means to do it, Nikolay Ivanovitch! It’s all very well for you; but for me, with a son to keep at the university, lads to be educated at the high school⁠—how am I going to buy these dray-horses?”

“Well, that’s what the land banks are for.”

“To get what’s left me sold by auction? No, thank you.”