“A telegram! What can there be now?”
He takes the envelope and opens it with shaking fingers. The god, struck twice already, begins to feel himself vulnerable, to know the fears, the nervous weakness of other men. Quick—to the signature. MORA! Is it possible? The duke—the duke to him! Yes, it is indeed—M-O-R-A. And above it: “Popolasca is dead. Election coming in Corsica. You are official candidate.”
Deputy! It was salvation. With that, nothing to fear. No one dares treat a representative of the great French nation as a mere swindler. The Hemerlingues were finely defeated.
“Oh, my duke, my noble duke!”
He was so full of emotion that he could not sign his name. Suddenly: “Where is the man who brought this telegram?”
“Here, M. Jansoulet,” replied a jolly south-country voice from the corridor.
He was lucky, that postman.
“Come in,” said the Nabob. And giving him the receipt, he took in a heap from his pockets—ever full—as many gold pieces as his hands could hold, and threw them into the cap of the poor fellow, who stuttered, distracted and dazzled by the fortune showered upon him, in the night of this fairy palace.