handed, knowing nothing of such strategy as
would be required, while his antagonist was a great master of
financial tactics. He was prepared to go to the wall in reference to
his money, only hoping that in doing so he might save his character
and keep the reputation of an honest man. He was quite resolved to be
guided altogether by Mr Ramsbottom, and intended to ask Mr Ramsbottom
to draw up for him such a statement as would be fitting for him to
publish. But it was manifest now that Mr Melmotte would make some
proposition, and it was impossible that he should have Mr Ramsbottom
at his elbow to help him.

He had been in Melmotte's house on the night of the ball, but had
contented himself after that with leaving a card. He had heard much of
the splendour of the place, but remembered simply the crush and the
crowd, and that he had danced there more than once or twice with Hetta
Carbury. When he was shown into the hail he was astonished to find
that it was not only stripped, but was full of planks, and ladders,
and trussels, and mortar. The preparations for the great dinner had
been already commenced. Through all this he made his way to the
stairs, and was taken up to a small room on the second floor, where
the servant told him that Mr Melmotte would come to him. Here he
waited a quarter of an hour looking out into the yard at the back.
There was not a book in the room, or even a picture with which he
could amuse himself. He was beginning to think whether his own
personal dignity would not be best consulted by taking his departure,
when Melmotte himself, with slippers on his feet and enveloped in a
magnificent dressing-gown, bustled into the room. 'My dear sir, I am
so sorry. You are a punctual man, I see. So am I. A man of business
should be punctual. But they ain't always. Brehgert,--from the house
of Todd, Brehgert, and Goldsheiner, you know,--has just been with me. We
had to settle something about the Moldavian loan. He came a quarter
late, and of course he went a quarter late. And how is a man to catch
a quarter of an hour? I never could do it.' Montague assured the great
man that the delay was of no consequence. 'And I am so sorry to ask
you into such a place as this. I had Brehgert in my room downstairs,
and then the house is so knocked about! We get into a furnished house
a little way off in Bruton Street to-morrow. Longestaffe lets me his
house for a month till this affair of the dinner is over. By-the by,
Montagu