money might be taken without a corresponding effect upon the voting.  It was found upon trial that Mr Alf was a good speaker.  And though he still conducted the ‘Evening Pulpit’, he made time for addressing meetings of the constituency almost daily.  And in his speeches he never spared Melmotte.  No one, he said, had a greater reverence for mercantile grandeur than himself.  But let them take care that the grandeur was grand.  How great would be the disgrace to such a borough as that of Westminster if it should find that it had been taken in by a false spirit of speculation and that it had surrendered itself to gambling when it had thought to do honour to honest commerce.  This, connected, as of course it was, with the articles in the paper, was regarded as very open...