Some men said that Melmotte was not a citizen of London, others that he was not a merchant, others again that he was not an Englishman.  But no man could deny that he was both able and willing to spend the necessary money; and as this combination of ability and will was the chief thing necessary, they who opposed the arrangement could only storm and scold.  On the 20th of June the tradesmen were at work, throwing up a building behind, knocking down walls, and generally transmuting the house in Grosvenor Square in such a fashion that two hundred guests might be able to sit down to dinner in the dining-room of a British merchant.

But who were to be the two hundred?  It used to be the case that when a gentleman gave a dinner he asked his own guests;—­but when...