Our Mutual Friend Book 3, Part 11, Chapter 1

Lodgers in Queer Street

• Book 3 is called "A Long Lane."
• Mr. Riah is making a visit to his boss, Mr. Fledgeby, who is still nestled snugly in bed at ten-thirty a.m. That's a pretty intense sleep-in for Dickens' time.
• After Fledgeby makes a few ugly, bigoted remarks about Jewish people, he hears someone coming in from outside. It's the voice of Alfred Lammle, who's looking for him.
• Fledgeby introduces Mr. Riah as an employee of Pubsey and Co. But he neglects to mention the fact that he (Fledgeby) owns this same company.
• Lammle is there to tell Fledgeby that their plan has been blown out of the water. Mr. Podsnap has found out about their scheme to marry Georgiana and has requested that the Lammles not speak to his family anymore.
• Fledgeby and Lammle are disappointed, and they're even angrier to think that they have no clue how Podsnap sniffed out their plans.
• Once Lammle is gone, Fledgeby calls Mr. Riah back in and asks where Lizzie Hexam has disappeared to. He has seen Lizzie in Mr. Riah's company before and figures that Mr. Riah has had something to do with her disappearance.
• Riah admits that he has helped Lizzie go somewhere where the people in London won't find her. He won't say exactly where, though, and Mr. Fledgeby quickly loses interest.
• After Riah has left, Fledgeby rubs his hands together and says "Mwahahaha" and does all that cartoon villain stuff. We find out that he's been buying up a lot of properties in secret and that he now holds a bunch of people's mortgages in the palm of his hand.