Page:"The Mummy" Volume 3.djvu/58

 true they were the agents that produced the intended effect; but his was the master spirit that set them in motion, and taught them where to go. His powerful intellect caught in an instant the comparative merits and disadvantages of the plan now in discussion, and his nod decided its fate.

The council, however, though they implicitly obeyed his will, had not the least idea that they were doing so; as he had the address so to form his opinions as to let each person imagine them the suggestions of his own breast.

Whilst the principal personages in the cabinet, fancying they were leading, were thus blindly led, the nonentities of course followed in their train, and our old friends the lords of ancient family were perfectly astonished when they heard the magnificent plans and sagacious councils attributed to them, and sate quite lost in admiration of their own wisdom, whilst their little heads and enormous perriwigs kept bobbing with at least threefold their accustomed rapidity.