But the dinner was not to be all. Eight hundred additional tickets were to be issued for Madame Melmotte's evening entertainment, and the fight for these was more internecine than for seats at the dinner. The dinner-seats, indeed, were handled in so statesmanlike a fashion that there was not much visible fighting about them. Royalty manages its affairs quietly. The existing Cabinet was existing, and though there were two or three members of it who could not have got themselves elected at a single unpolitical club in London, they had a right to their seats at Melmotte's table. What disappointed ambition there might be among Conservative candidates was never known to the public. Those gentlemen do not wash their dirty linen in public. The ambassadors of course were quiet, but we may be sure that the Minister from the United States was among the favoured five. The city bankers and bigwigs, as has been already said, were at first unwilling to be present, and therefore they who were not chosen could not afterwards express their displeasure. No grumbling was heard among the peers, and that which came from the peeresses floated down into the current of the great fight about the evening entertainment. The poet laureate was of course asked, and the second poet was as much a matter of course. Only two Academicians had in this year painted royalty, so that there was no ground for jealousy there. There were three, and only three, specially insolent and specially disagreeable independent members of Parliament at that time in the House, and there was no difficulty in selecting them. The wise men were chosen by their age. Among editors of newspapers there was some ill-blood. That Mr. Alf and Mr. Broune should be selected was almost a matter of course. They were hated accordingly, but still this was expected. But why was Mr. Booker there? Was it because he had praised the Prime Minister's translation of Catullus? The African traveller chose himself by living through all his perils and coming home. A novelist was selected; but as royalty wanted another ticket at the last moment, the gentleman was only asked to come in after dinner. His proud heart, however, resented the treatment, and he joined amicably with his literary brethren in decrying the festival altogether.

But the dinner was not all. Eight hundred additional tickets were to be issued for Madame Melmotte's evening entertainment, and the fight for these was fiercer than for seats at the dinner. 