“You will then obtain the Golden Fleece, if you are still in the ministry.”
“I think, Albert, you have adopted the system of feeding me on smoke this morning.”
“Well, you must allow it is the best thing for the stomach; but I hear Beauchamp in the next room; you can dispute together, and that will pass away the time.”
“About what?”
“About the papers.”
“My dear friend,” said Lucien with an air of sovereign contempt, “do I ever read the papers?”
“Then you will dispute the more.”
“ M. Beauchamp,” announced the servant. “Come in, come in,” said Albert, rising and advancing to meet the young man. “Here is Debray, who detests you without reading you, so he says.”
“He is quite right,” returned Beauchamp; “for I criticise him without knowing what he does. Good day, commander!”
“Ah, you know that already,” said the private secretary, smiling and shaking hands with him.
“ Pardieu! ”
“And what do they say of it in the world?”
“In which world? we have so many worlds in the year of grace 1838.”
“In the entire political world, of which you are one of the leaders.”