"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, in the field, as might happen any day to his happy friends, Captain Fooks and Lieutenant Cox; but he was determined that he would accustom himself to stand fire;--and that, therefore, he would never run away from a dun. Now there slipped very slowly into the room, that most mysterious person who was commonly called Herr Bawwah,--much to the astonishment of the three young gentlemen, as the celebrated cutter of leather had never previously been seen by either of them elsewhere than standing silent at his board in Neefit's shop, with his knife in his hands. They looked at one another, and the two military gentlemen thought that Mr. Neefit was very much in earnest when he sent Bawwah to look for his money. Mr. Neefit was very much in earnest; but on this occasion his emissary had not come for money. "What, Herr Bawwah;--is that you?" said Ralph, making the best he could of the name. "Is there anything wrong at the shop?" The German looked slowly round the room, and then handed to the owner of it a little note without a word.