Arnold Bennett 
The Grand Babylon Hotel 

Arnold Bennett's The Grand Babylon Hotel, from 1902, tells the story of a German prince mysteriously disappearing. American millionaire Theodore Racksole and his daughter Nella stay at the exclusive Grand Babylon Hotel. When Nella is denied her dinner order of steak and Bass beer, Racksole's solution is to purchase the entire hotel for exactly four hundred thousand pounds and one guinea, the one guinea added after the former owner decides to haggle.