Material comfort is necessary to a man of my age.
Fine phrases and a medal or two more do not count.

I am, then, to go to Servia.

You were very kind to hide me in your cabinet." "It was to show you that I had no secrets from you," quickly.
"Let us pass on.

Mollendorf is to go to Paris, where he will be a nonentity, while in his present office he is a power in the land--Devil take me, but it seems to me that we are all a pack of asses! Our gains will not be commensurate with our losses.

The navy?
Well, we'll let that pass; the Colonel, I see, loves a joke." "You forget our patriotism for the true house." "Why not give it its true name--self-interest ?" "Marshal, in heaven's name, what has stirred your bile ?" The minister was losing his patience, a bad thing for him to do in the presence of the old warrior.
"It is something I've been swallowing this past year." The Marshal tipped the ash of his cigar into the waste basket.
"Marshal, will you take the word not of the minister, but of the von Wallenstein, that whatever my reward shall be for my humble services, yours shall not be less ?" "Thanks, but I have asked for no reward.