A Minister can always give a reason; and, if he be clever, he can generally when doing so punish the man who… — Anthony Trollope
A Minister can always give a reason; and, if he be clever, he can generally when doing so punish the man who asks for it. The punishing of an influential enemy is an indiscretion; but an obscure questioner may often be crushed with good effect.
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More from this book
No doubt there were other first cousins as badly off, or perhaps worse, as to whom the Duchess would care nothing whether they were rich or poor, — married or single; but then they were first cousins who had not had the advantage of interesting the Duchess.
“Isn‘t there some trouble about money?”
“They wouldn‘t be very rich, Duchess.”
“What a blessing for them! But then, perhaps, they‘d be very poor.”
“They would be rather poor.”
“Which is not a blessing.”
The natural man will probably be manly. The affected man cannot be so.

