r was to be given
to him at the club. Mr Melmotte was asked to meet him, and on such an
occasion all the resources of the club were to be brought forth. Lord
Alfred Grendall was also to be a guest, and Mr Cohenlupe, who went
about a good deal with Melmotte. Nidderdale, Carbury, Montague, and
Miles Grendall were members of the club, and gave the dinner. No
expense was spared. Herr Vossner purveyed the viands and wines,--and
paid for them. Lord Nidderdale took the chair, with Fisker on his
right hand, and Melmotte on his left, and, for a fast-going young
lord, was supposed to have done the thing well. There were only two
toasts drunk, to the healths of Mr Melmotte and Mr Fisker, and two
speeches were of course made by them. Mr Melmotte may have been held
to have clearly proved the genuineness of that English birth which he
claimed by the awkwardness and incapacity which he showed on the
occasion. He stood with his hands on the table and with his face
turned to his plate blurted out his assurance that the floating of
this railway company would be one of the greatest and most successful
commercial operations ever conducted on either side of the Atlantic.
It was a great thing,--a very great thing;--he had no hesitation in saying
that it was one of the greatest things out. He didn't believe a
greater thing had ever come out. He was happy to give his humble
assistance to the furtherance of so great a thing,--and so on. These
assertions, not varying much one from the other, he jerked out like so
many separate interjections, endeavouring to look his friends in the
face at each, and then turning his countenance back to his plate as
though seeking for inspiration for the next attempt. He was not
eloquent; but the gentlemen who heard him remembered that he was the
great Augustus Melmotte, that he might probably make them all rich
men, and they cheered him to the echo. Lord Alfred had reconciled
himself to be called by his Christian name, since he had been put in
the way of raising two or three hundred pounds on the security of
shares which were to be allotted to him, but of which in the flesh he
had as yet seen nothing. Wonderful are the ways of trade! If one can
only get the tip of one's little finger into the right pie, what noble
morsels, what rich esculents, will stick to it as it is extracted!

When Melmotte sat down Fisker made his speech, and it was fluent,
fast, and florid. Without giving it word for word, which would be
t