Ned; "ay, there's the rub! Who the deuce is to pay the
expense of our dinner?"

"And our dinners for the last week?" added Tomlinson. "This empty nut
looks ominous; it certainly has one grand feature strikingly resembling
my pockets."

"Heigho!" sighed Long Ned, turning his waistcoat commodities inside-out
with a significant gesture, while the accomplished Tomlinson, who
was fond of plaintive poetry, pointed to the disconsolate vacua, and
exclaimed,

"E'en while Fashion's brightest arts decoy,
The heart desponding asks if this be joy!"

"In truth, gentlemen," added he, solemnly depositing his nut-crackers
on the table, and laying, as was his wont when about to be luminous, his
right finger on his sinister palm,--"in truth, gentlemen, affairs are
growing serious with us, and it becomes necessary forthwith to devise
some safe means of procuring a decent competence."

"I am dunned confoundedly," cried Ned.

"And," continued Tomlinson, "no person of delicacy likes to be subjected
to the importunity of vulgar creditors; we must therefore raise money
for the liquidation of our debts. Captain Lovett, or Clifford, whichever
you be styled, we call upon you to assist us in so praiseworthy a
purpose."

Clifford turned his eyes first on one and then on the other; but made no
answer.

"Imprimis," said Tomlinson, "let us each produce our stock in hand; for
my part, I am free to confess--for what shame is there in that poverty
which our exertions are about to relieve?--that I have only two guineas
four shillings and threepence halfpenny!"

"And I," said Long Ned, taking a China ornament from the chimney-piece,
and emptying its contents in his hand, "am in a still more pitiful
condition. See, I have only three shillings and a bad guinea. I gave
the guinea to the waiter at the White Hart yesterday; the dog brought
it back to me to-day, and I was forced to change it with my last shiner.
Plague take the thing! I bought it of a Jew for four shillings, and have
lost one pound five by the bargain."

"Fortune frustrates our wisest schemes," rejoined the moralizing
Augustus. "Captain, will you produce the scanty wrecks of your wealth?"

Clifford, still silent, threw a purse on the table. Augustus carefully
emptied it, and counted out five guineas; an expression of grave
surprise settled on Tomlinson's contemplative brow, and extending the
coins towards Clifford, he said in a melancholy tone,--