14/29 Even Montague did not beguile himself into an idea that he was really a director in a company to be employed in the making and working of a railway. People out of doors were to be advertised into buying shares, and they who were so to say indoors were to have the privilege of manufacturing the shares thus to be sold. That was to be their work, and they all knew it. But now, as there were eight of them collected together, they talked of humanity at large and of the coming harmony of nations. Lord Alfred would have liked to remain, being a man who enjoyed tobacco and soda-and-brandy,--but momentous days had come upon him, and he thought well to cling to his Melmotte. |