, 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.

He was sitting one bright July morning in his own room in St. James's
Street, over a very late breakfast, with his two friends, Captain
Fooks and Lieutenant Cox, when a little annoyance of a similar kind
fell upon him;--a worse annoyance, indeed, than that which had come
from Mr. Horsball, for Mr. Horsball had not been spiteful enough to
call upon him. There came a knock at his door, and young Mr. Moggs
was ushered into the room. Now Mr. Moggs was the son of Booby and
Moggs, the