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...