“But I don’t understand,” says the Father of the three hundred and seventy-five thousand pounds, “⁠—if these people spoken of, occupied the position of being in society⁠—they were in society?”

Veneering is bound to confess that they dined here, and were even married from here.

“Then I don’t understand,” pursues the Father, “how even their living beyond their means could bring them to what has been termed a total smash. Because, there is always such a thing as an adjustment of affairs, in the case of people of any standing at all.”

Eugene (who would seem to be in a gloomy state of suggestiveness), suggests, “Suppose you have no means and live beyond them?”