to him. 'If you go on making a row,' he
said, 'I shall go away.' Melmotte looked at him with all his eyes.
'Just sit quiet and let the thing go on. You'll know all about it soon
enough.' This was hardly the way to give Mr Melmotte peace of mind.
For a few minutes he did sit quiet. Then he got up and moved down the
hall behind the guests.

In the meantime, Imperial Majesty and Royalties of various
denominations ate their dinner, without probably observing those
Banquo's seats. As the Emperor talked Manchoo only, and as there was
no one present who could even interpret Manchoo into English,--the
imperial interpreter condescending only to interpret Manchoo into
ordinary Chinese which had to be reinterpreted,--it was not within
his Imperial Majesty's power to have much conversation with his
neighbours. And as his neighbours on each side of him were all cousins
and husbands, and brothers and wives, who saw each constantly under,
let us presume, more comfortable circumstances, they had not very much
to say to each other. Like most of us, they had their duties to do,
and, like most of us, probably found their duties irksome. The
brothers and sisters and cousins were used to it; but that awful
Emperor, solid, solemn, and silent, must, if the spirit of an Eastern
Emperor be at all like that of a Western man, have had a weary time of
it. He sat there for more than two hours, awful, solid, solemn, and
silent, not eating very much,--for this was not his manner of eating;
nor drinking very much,--for this was not his manner of drinking; but
wondering, no doubt, within his own awful bosom, at the changes which
were coming when an Emperor of China was forced, by outward
circumstances, to sit and hear this buzz of voices and this clatter of
knives and forks. 'And this,' he must have said to himself, 'is what
they call royalty in the West!' If a prince of our own was forced, for
the good of the country, to go among some far-distant outlandish
people, and there to be poked in the ribs, and slapped on the back all
round, the change to him could hardly be so great.

'Where's Sir Gregory?' said Melmotte, in a hoarse whisper, bending
over the chair of a City friend. It was old Todd, the senior partner
of Todd, Brehgert, and Goldsheiner. Mr Todd was a very wealthy man,
and had a considerable following in the City.

'Ain't he here?' said Todd,--knowing very well who had come from the
City and who had declined.

'No;--and the Lord Mayor's