"I don't turn my nose up at him. I'm very fond of Mr. Moggs. I think he's the best fun going. But I am sure that if Mr. Newton does come, he'd rather not have Mr. Moggs here too." "It wouldn't do at all," said Mr. Neefit. "Ontario is all very well, but Mr. Newton and he wouldn't suit." Mrs. Neefit was snubbed, and went to sleep on the sofa for the rest of the afternoon,--intending, no doubt, to let Mr. Neefit have the benefit of her feelings as soon as they two should be alone together. Our friend Ralph received the note, and accepted the invitation. He told himself that it was a lark. As the reader knows, he had already decided that he would not sell himself even to so pretty a girl as Polly Neefit for any amount of money; but not the less might it be agreeable to him to pass a Sunday afternoon in her company. Ralph Newton at this time occupied very comfortable bachelor's rooms in a small street close to St. James's Palace. He had now held these for the last two years, and had contrived to make his friends about town know that here was his home. He had declined to go into the army himself when he was quite young,--or rather had agreed not to go into the army, on condition that he should not be pressed as to any other profession. He lived, however, very much with military friends, many of whom found it convenient occasionally to breakfast with him, or to smoke a pipe in his chambers. He never did any work, and lived a useless, butterfly life,--only with this difference from other butterflies, that he was expected to pay for his wings. In that matter of payment was the great difficulty of Ralph Newton's life. He had been started at nineteen with an allowance of L250 per annum. When he was twenty-one he inherited a fortune from his father of more than double that amount; and as he was the undoubted heir to a property of L7,000 a year, it may be said of him that he was born with a golden spoon. But he had got into debt before he was twenty, and had never got out of it. The quarrel with his uncle was an old affair, arranged for him by his father before he knew how to quarrel on his own score, and therefore we need say no more about that at present. But his uncle would not pay a shilling for him, and would have quarrelled also with his other nephew, the clergyman, had he known that the younger brother assisted the elder. But up to the moment of which we are writing, the iron of debt had not as yet absolutely entered into the soul of this young man. He had, in his need, just borrowed L100 from his breeches-maker; and this perhaps was not the first time that he had gone to a tradesman for assistance. But hitherto money had been forthcoming, creditors had been indulgent, and at this moment he possessed four horses which were eating their heads off at the Moonbeam, at Barnfield.