He formally offered his congratulations to Ratcliffe on his appointment.

This little scene occurred in Mrs.
Lee's parlour.

The old Baron, with his most suave manner, and his most Voltairean leer, said that in all his experience, and he had seen a great many court intrigues, he had never seen anything better managed than that about the Treasury.
Ratcliffe was furiously angry, and told the Baron outright that foreign ministers who insulted the governments to which they were accredited ran a risk of being sent home.
"Ce serait toujours un pis aller," said Jacobi, seating himself with calmness in Ratcliffe's favourite chair by Mrs.Lee's side.
Madeleine, alarmed as she was, could not help interposing, and hastily asked whether that remark was translatable.
"Ah!" said the Baron; "I can do nothing with your language.

You would only say that it was a choice of evils, to go, or to stay." "We might translate it by saying: 'One may go farther and fare worse,'" rejoined Madeleine; and so the storm blew over for the time, and Ratcliffe sulkily let the subject drop.

Nevertheless the two men never met in Mrs.
Lee's parlour without her dreading a personal altercation.