George,’ said Dolly, as he filled another pipe and ordered more brandy and water, ’I think everything is going to come to an end.  I do indeed.  I never heard of such a thing before as a man being done in this way.  And then Vossner has gone off, and it seems everybody is to pay just what he says they owed him.  And now one can’t even get up a game of cards.  I feel as though there were no good in hoping that things would ever come right again.’

The opinion of the club was a good deal divided as to the matter in dispute between Lord Nidderdale and Dolly Longestaffe.  It was admitted by some to be ‘very fishy.’  If Melmotte were so great a man why didn’t he...