For some years he had vegetated in a kind of semi-disgrace and fretted over his inactivity. When he found himself able once more to make a display of his administrative talents he took himself and these talents quite seriously and imagined that perhaps he could become the saviour of Russia, but surely a very rich man. This last idea had been suggested to him by Mr. Manassevitsch-Maniuloff, who in conversations with him had imbued Mr. Sturmer with the conviction that it would be a proof of careless neglect on his part if he did not make the most of the many opportunities his important position as Prime Minister put in his way, and did not assure the prosperity of his old age, when he had at his disposal all possible sources of information out of which he might make a profit. Mr. Sturmer was no saint, and the weaknesses of the flesh had always appealed to him. There is nothing wonderful in the fact that he listened with attention, and even with satisfaction, to the confidences which were poured into his ear by his private secretary, of whose talents he had a most exalted opinion. When his Fides Achates was arrested and thrown into a more or less dark dungeon, Mr. Sturmer was so dismayed that he allowed himself to be drawn into the mistake of identifying himself with the prisoner and claiming his liberty as a right. It is related that when the object of his solicitude heard of the various steps undertaken by the Prime Minister on his behalf he gave vent to words of impatience at what he considered an imprudence likely to cost a good deal to the guilty ones. “Sturmer ought to have known that a man like myself does not allow himself to be arrested without having taken the precaution to be able to impose on those who had ventured to do so the necessity of liberating him,” he had exclaimed.