somebody doesn't make love to her.'

'No, indeed,' said Kate, looking hastily up, 'I--' and then she stopped,
feeling it would have been better to have said nothing at all.

'I'll hold any man fifty pounds,' said Sir Mulberry, 'that Miss Nickleby
can't look in my face, and tell me she wasn't thinking so.'

'Done!' cried the noble gull. 'Within ten minutes.'

'Done!' responded Sir Mulberry. The money was produced on both sides,
and the Honourable Mr Snobb was elected to the double office of
stake-holder and time-keeper.

'Pray,' said Kate, in great confusion, while these preliminaries were
in course of completion. 'Pray do not make me the subject of any bets.
Uncle, I cannot really--'

'Why not, my dear?' replied Ralph, in whose grating voice, however,
there was an unusual huskiness, as though he spoke unwillingly, and
would rather that the proposition had not been broached. 'It is done in
a moment; there is nothing in it. If the gentlemen insist on it--'

'I don't insist on it,' said Sir Mulberry, with a loud laugh. 'That is,
I by no means insist upon Miss Nickleby's making the denial, for if she
does, I lose; but I shall be glad to see her bright eyes, especially as
she favours the mahogany so much.'

'So she does, and it's too ba-a-d of you, Miss Nickleby,' said the noble
youth.