But you stretch your credit a
little too far. If this appointment gives rise to discussion, we shall
not be held blameless. I can laugh at such things; but you will find
it a thorn under your feet. And the next session will see your
dismissal. Your place is held out as a bait to five or six influential
men, and you have been enabled to keep it solely by the force of my
arguments. I tell you, on the day when you retire, there will be five
malcontents to one happy man; whereas, by keeping you hanging on by a
thread for two or three years, we shall secure all six votes. There
was a great laugh at the Council meeting; the Veteran of the Old
Guard, as they say, was becoming desperately wide awake in
parliamentary tactics! I am frank with you.--And you are growing gray;
you are a happy man to be able to get into such difficulties as these!
How long is it since I--Lieutenant Cottin--had a mistress?"
He rang the bell.
"That police report must be destroyed," he added.
"Monseigneur, you are as a father to me! I dared not mention my
anxiety on that point."
"I still wish I had Roger here," cried the Prince, as Mitouflet, his
groom of the chambers, came in. "I was just going to send for him!
--You may go, Mitouflet.
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