It no doubt might have been wise to have allowed the merchant prince to return home with the resolution that his dinner should be abandoned. He would have repented probably before the next morning; and had he continued obdurate it would not have been difficult to explain to Celestial Majesty that something preferable had been found for that particular evening even to a banquet at the house of British commerce. 
It might have been wise to have allowed Melmotte to return home with the resolution that his dinner should be abandoned; he would probably have repented before the next morning. 