at his father
would be forced to apply through his solicitor, unless he should
receive at least half the amount due before the end of the next week.
"Tell your father that I will certainly call within the next three
days and tell him what I can do;--or, at least, what I can't do.
You are sure you won't take a cigar?" Moggs was quite sure that he
wouldn't take a cigar, and retired, thanking Ralph as though some
excellent arrangement had been made which would altogether prevent
further difficulties.

"That's the softest chap I ever saw," said Lieutenant Cox.

"I wish my fellows would treat me like that," said Captain Fooks.
"But I never knew a fellow have the luck that Newton has. I don't
suppose I owe a tenth of what you do."

"That's your idea of luck?" said Ralph.

"Well;--yes. I owe next to nothing, but I'll be hanged if I can get
anything done for me without being dunned up to my very eyes. You
know that chap of Neefit's? I'm blessed if he didn't ask me whether
I meant to settle last year's bill, before he should send me home a
couple of cords I ordered! Now I don't owe Neefit twenty pounds if
all was told."

"What did you do?" asked Lieutenant Cox.

"I just walked out of the shop. Now I shall see whether they're sent
or not. They tell me there's a fellow down at Rugby makes just as
well as Neefit, and never bothers you at all. What do you owe Neefit,
Newton?"

"Untold sums."

"But how much really?"

"Don't you hear me say the sums are untold?"

"Oh; d----n it; I don't understand that. I'm never dark about
anything of that kind. I'll go bail it's more than five times what I
do."

"Very likely. If you had given your orders generously, as I have
done, you would have been treated nobly. What good has a man in
looking at twenty pounds on his books? Of course he must get in the
small sums."

"I suppose there's something in that," said the captain thoughtfully.
At this moment the conversation was interrupted by the entrance of
another emissary,--an emissary from that very establishment to which
they were alluding. It was Ralph Newton's orders that no one should
ever be denied to him when he was really in his rooms. He had fought
the battle long enough to know that such denials create unnecessary
animosity. And then, as he said, they were simply the resources of
a coward. It was the duty of a brave man to meet his enemy face to
face. Fortune could never give him the opportunity of doing that
pleasantly, i