Troubles were coming thick upon Ralph Newton. He had borrowed a hundred pounds from Mr. Neefit, but this he had done under pressure of a letter from his brother the parson. He owed the parson,--we will not say how much. He would get fifty pounds or a hundred from the parson every now and again, giving an assurance that it should be repaid in a month or six weeks. Sometimes the promise would be kept,--and sometimes not. The parson, as a bachelor, was undoubtedly a rich man. He had a living of L400 a year, and some fortune of his own; but he had tastes of his own, and was repairing the Church at Peele Newton, his parish in Hampshire. It would therefore sometimes happen that he was driven to ask his brother for money. The hundred pounds which had been borrowed from Mr. Neefit had been sent down to Peele Newton with a mere deduction of L25 for current expenses. Twenty-five pounds do not go far in current expenses in London with a man who is given to be expensive, and Ralph Newton was again in want of funds. And there were other troubles, all coming from want of money. Mr. Horsball, of the Moonbeam, who was generally known in the sporting world as a man who never did ask for his money, had remarked that as Mr. Newton's bill was now above a thousand, he should like a little cash. Mr. Newton's bill at two months for L500 would be quite satisfactory. "Would Mr. Newton accept the enclosed document?" Mr. Newton did accept the document, but he didn't like it. How was he to pay L500 in the beginning of September, unless indeed he got it from Mr. Neefit? He might raise money, no doubt, on his own interest in the Newton Priory estate. But that estate would never be his were he to die before his uncle, and he knew that assistance from the Jews on such security would ruin him altogether. Of his own property there was still a remnant left. He owned houses in London from which he still got some income. But they were mortgaged, and the title-deeds not in his possession, and his own attorney made difficulties about obtaining for him a further advance.