Empty Words/Papers

Chapter IX
“As Mr. Melmotte read the documents, Fisker from time to time put in a word. But the words had no reference at all to the future profits of the railway or to the benefit which such means of communication would confer upon the world at large; but applied solely to the appetite for such stock as theirs, which might certainly be produced in the speculating world by a proper manipulation of the affairs” (76). #Dishonesty #Facility with Language #Empty Words/Papers

Fisker convinces Melmotte that it’s not necessary to back the railway stock with real money:

““There would be such a mass of stock!’

'You have to back that with a certain amount of paid-up capital?’

‘We take care, sir, in the West not to cripple commerce too closely by old-fashioned bandages” (77). #Dishonesty #Empty Words/Papers

Chapter X
Melmotte gives an awkward speech at Fisker ’s farewell dinner: “He was not eloquent; but the gentlemen who heard him remembered that he was the great Augustus Melmotte, that he might probably make them all rich men, and they cheered him to the echo” (81). #Facility with Language #Empty Words/Papers

“Lord Alfred had reconciled himself to be called by his Christian name, since he had been put in the way of raising two or three hundred pounds on the security of shares which were to be allotted to him, but of which in the flesh he had as yet seen nothing” (81). #Names #Empty Words/Papers