The prince looked at him with some surprise.
"Have you finished?" he asked shortly.
"At your command, Excellency."
"You have a heap of things you are taking away again?" said the prince, glancing at the thick packet von Hamburger held beneath his arm.
"I shall have the honour of bringing these matters before you on some future day," said the secretary.
"Why not to-day? You have been here but a quarter of an hour, and we have still time!" said the minister, with a slight accent of impatience in his voice.
Monsieur von Hamburger allowed his quick eyes to rest for a moment on the prince's face in silence, then he said calmly, with a slight smile,--
"Your Excellency must, I fear, have passed a bad night, and you feel in no gracious mood. I have, besides these reports, various matters which, on the ground of justice and courtesy, it is very desirable to consider in a friendly spirit before presenting them to his majesty the emperor. I think your Excellency will be angry with me by-and-bye if I expose these affairs to the reception that at the present moment seems probable."
The prince looked at him for a moment firmly through his gold spectacles without his secretary's casting down his eyes, or at all changing the smiling, cheerful expression of his countenance.
"Hamburger," he then said, still in a peevish voice, though the first appearance of returning good humour was seen in the corners of his eyes, "I shall make you my doctor! Alas! you don't know how to find the remedy, but as far as the diagnosis is concerned, you are a born physician. I shall no longer have the right of being in a bad temper before you."