The Duchess's little joke about the Ministers generally, and the advantages of submission on their part to their chief, was thought by some who heard it not to have been made in good taste. The joke was just such a joke as the Duchess would be sure to make,--meaning very little but still not altogether pointless. It was levelled rather at her husband than at her husband's colleagues who were present, and was so understood by those who really knew her,--as did Mrs. Finn, and Mr. Warburton, the private secretary. But Sir Orlando and Sir Timothy and Mr. Rattler, who were all within hearing, thought that the Duchess had intended to allude to the servile nature of their position; and Mr. Boffin, who heard it, rejoiced within himself, comforting himself with the reflection that his withers were unwrung, and thinking with what pleasure he might carry the anecdote into the farthest corners of the clubs. Poor Duchess! 'Tis pitiful to think that after such Herculean labours she should injure the cause by one slight unconsidered word, more, perhaps, than she had advanced it by all her energy. During this time the Duke was at the Castle, but he showed himself seldom to his guests,--so acting, as the reader will I hope understand, from no sense of the importance of his own personal presence, but influenced by a conviction that a public man should not waste his time. He breakfasted in his own room, because he could thus eat his breakfast in ten minutes. He read all the papers in solitude, because he was thus enabled to give his mind to their contents. Life had always been too serious to him to be wasted. Every afternoon he walked for the sake of exercise, and would have accepted any companion if any companion had especially offered himself. But he went off by some side-door, finding the side-door to be convenient, and therefore when seen by others was supposed to desire to remain unseen. "I had no idea there was so much pride about the Duke," Mr. Boffin said to his old colleague, Sir Orlando. "Is it pride?" asked Sir Orlando. "It may be shyness," said the wise Boffin. "The two things are so alike you can never tell the difference. But the man who is cursed by either should hardly be a Prime Minister."