He wiped away the big drops of sweat that trickled down his cheeks.

“Ah, well, I will look after this validation myself,” said the minister sharply.  “I will write to what’s-his-name to hurry up with his report; and even if I have to be carried to the Chamber—­”

“Your excellency is unwell?” asked Jansoulet, in a tone of interest which, I swear to you, had no affectation about it.

“No—­a little weakness.  I am rather anaemic—­wanting blood; but Jenkins is going to put me right.  Aren’t you, Jenkins?”

The Irishman, who had not been listening, made a vague gesture.

“Tonnerre! And here am I with only too much of it.”

And the Nabob loosened his cravat about his neck, swollen like an apoplexy by his emotion and the heat of the room.  “If I could only transfer a little to you, M. le Duc!”

“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!”