“It would be an excellent thing for both,” said the Minister of State with pale irony. “For you, especially, who are a violent fellow, and who at this moment need so much self-control. Take care on that point, Jansoulet. Beware of the hot retorts, the steps taken in a fit of temper to which they would like to drive you. Repeat to yourself now that you are a public man, on a platform, all of whose actions are observed from far. The newspapers are abusing you; don’t read them, if you cannot conceal the emotion which they cause you. Don’t do what I did, with my blind man of the Pont de la Concorde, that frightful clarinet-player, who for the last ten years has been blighting my life by playing all day ‘De tes fils, Norma.’ I have tried everything to get him away from there--money, threats. Nothing has succeeded in inducing him to go. The police? Ah, yes, indeed. With modern ideas, it becomes quite a business to clear off a blind man from a bridge. The Opposition newspapers would talk of it, the Parisians would make a story out of it--‘_The Cobbler and the Financier_.’ ‘The Duke and the Clarinet.’ No, I must resign myself. It is, besides, my own fault. I never ought to have let this man see that he annoyed me. I am sure that my torture makes half the pleasure of his life now. Every morning he comes forth from his wretched lodging with his dog, his folding-stool, his frightful music, and says to himself, ‘Come, let us go and worry the Duc de Mora.’ Not a day does he miss, the wretch! Why, see, if I were but to open the window a trifle, you would hear his deluge of little sharp notes above the noise of the water and the traffic. Well, this journalist of the _Messenger_, he is your clarinet; if you allow him to see that his music wearies you, he will never finish. And with this, my dear deputy, I will remind you that you have a meeting at three o’clock at the office, and I must send you back to the Chamber.” Then turning to Jenkins: “You know what I asked of you, doctor--pearls for the day after to-morrow; and let them be extra strong!” Jenkins started, shook himself as at the sudden awakening from a dream: “Certainly, my dear duke. You shall be given some stamina--oh, yes; stamina, breath enough to win the great Derby stakes.” He bowed, and left the room laughing, the veritable laugh of a wolf showing its gleaming white teeth. The Nabob took leave in his turn, his heart filled with gratitude, but not daring to let anything of it appear in the presence of this sceptic in whom all demonstrativeness aroused distrust. And the Minister of State, left alone, rolled up in his wraps before the crackling and blazing fire, sheltered in the padded warmth of his luxury, doubled that day by the feverish caress of the May sunshine, began to shiver with cold again, to shiver so violently that Felicia’s letter which he had reopened and was reading rapturously shook in his hands.