`Good!' returned Squeers. `I say! If you shouldn't find her out, you'll pay expenses at the Saracen, and something for loss of time?'

`Well,' said Ralph, testily; `yes! You have nothing more to say?'

Squeers shaking his head, Ralph accompanied him to the streetdoor, and audibly wondering, for the edification of Newman, why it was fastened as if it were night, let him in and Squeers out, and returned to his own room.

`Now!' he muttered, `come what come may, for the present I am firm and unshaken. Let me but retrieve this one small portion of my loss and disgrace; let me but defeat him in this one hope, dear to his heart as I know it must be; let me but do this; and it shall be the first link in such a chain, which I will wind about him, as never man forged yet.'