I am bound to say, however, that the grand vizier--no doubt because he was already too well-off--appeared to be above these sordid and venial considerations. This important personage, whose name on that occasion was His Highness the Sadrazani Mirza Ali Asghar Khan Emin es Sultan, combined an acute understanding with a superior cast of mind; the Shah showed him a very noteworthy affection and treated him as a friend. These marks of special kindness were due to curious causes, which an amiable Persian was good enough to reveal to me. It appears that, when the late Shah Nasr-ed-Din was shot dead at the mosque where he was making a pilgrimage, the grand vizier of the time, who was none other than this same Mirza Ali Asghar Khan, pretended that the Shah's wound was not serious, had the corpse seated in the carriage and drove back to the palace beside it, acting as if he were talking to his sovereign, fanning him and asking occasionally for water to quench his thirst, as though he were still alive. The death was not acknowledged till some days later. In this way, the vizier gave the heir-apparent, the present Shah, time to return from Tanris and avoided the grave troubles that would certainly have arisen had the truth been known. Muzaffr-ed-Din owned his crown and perhaps his life to his grand vizier; small wonder that he showed him some gratitude. His court minister, Mohamed Khan, could also have laid claim to this gratitude, for he gave proof of remarkable presence of mind at the time of the attempted assassination of which Muzaffr-ed-Din was the object during his stay in Paris in 1900.