Ralph looked at the old dog with a quiet smile as he chuckled on in this strain, and Newman Noggs in the closet felt his heart sink within him as the prospect of dinner grew fainter and fainter.

`I must humour him though,' cried old Arthur; `he must have his way -- a wilful man, as the Scotch say -- well, well, they're a wise people, the Scotch -- he will talk about business, and won't give away his time for nothing. He's very right. Time is money -- time is money.'

`He was one of us who made that saying, I should think,' said Ralph. I `Time is money, and very good money too, to those who reckon interest by it. Time is money! Yes, and time costs money -- it's rather an expensive article to some people we could name, or I forget my trade.'

In rejoinder to this sally, old Arthur again raised his hands, again chuckled, and again ejaculated `What a man it is!' which done, he dragged the low chair a little nearer to Ralph's high stool, and looking upwards into his immovable face, said,

`What would you say to me, if I was to tell you that I was -- that I was -- going to be married?'

`I should tell you,' replied Ralph, looking coldly down upon him, `that for some purpose of your own you told a lie, and that it wasn't the first time and wouldn't be the last; that I wasn't surprised and wasn't to be taken in.'

`Then I tell you seriously that I am,' said old Arthur.

`And I tell you seriously,' rejoined Ralph, `what I told you this minute. Stay. Let me look at you. There's a liquorish devilry in your face -- what is this?'

`I wouldn't deceive you, you know,' whined Arthur Gride; `I couldn't do it, I should be mad to try. I -- I -- to deceive Mr Nickleby! The pigmy to impose upon the giant. I ask again -- he, he, he! -- what should you say to me if I was to tell you that I was going to be married?'

`To some old hag?' said Ralph.

`No, No,' cried Arthur, interrupting him, and rubbing his hands in an ecstasy. `Wrong, wrong again. Mr Nickleby for once at fault -- out, quite out! To a young and beautiful girl; fresh, lovely, bewitching, and not nineteen. Dark eyes -- long eyelashes -- ripe and ruddy lips that to look at is to long to kiss -- beautiful clustering hair that one's fingers itch to play with -- such a waist as might make a man clasp the air involuntarily, thinking of twining his arm about it -- little feet that tread so lightly they hardly seem to walk upon the ground to marry all this, sir -- this -- hey, hey!'

`This is something more than common drivelling,' said Ralph, after listening with a curled lip to the old sinner's raptures. `The girl's name?'

`Oh deep, deep! See now how deep that is!' exclaimed old Arthur. `He knows I want his help, he knows he can give it me, he knows it must all turn to his advantage, he sees the thing already. Her name -- is there nobody within hearing?'

`Why, who the devil should there be?' retorted Ralph, testily.

`I didn't know but that perhaps somebody might be passing up or down the stairs,' said Arthur Gride, after looking out at the door and carefully re-closing it; `or but that your man might have come back and might have been listening outside -- clerks and servants have a trick of listening, and I should have been very uncomfortable if Mr Noggs --'

`Curse Mr Noggs,' said Ralph, sharply, `and go on with what you have to say.'