OUTERMAN _v_ TUDOR Charley sat at his office on the Saturday afternoon, very meditative and unlike himself.

What was he to do when his office hours were over?
In the first place he had not a shilling in the world to get his dinner.

His habit was to breakfast at home at his lodgings with Harry, and then to dine, as best he might, at some tavern, if he had not the good fortune to be dining out.

He had a little dinner bill at a house which he frequented in the Strand; but the bill he knew had reached its culminating point.
It would, he was aware, be necessary that it should be decreased, not augmented, at the next commercial transaction which might take place between him and the tavern-keeper.
This was not the first time by many in which he had been in a similar plight--but his resource in such case had been to tell the truth gallantly to his friend Mrs.Davis; and some sort of viands, not at all unprepossessing to him in his hunger, would always be forthcoming for him at the 'Cat and Whistle.' This supply was now closed to him.

Were he, under his present circumstances, to seek for his dinner from the fair hands of Norah Geraghty, it would be tantamount to giving himself up as lost for ever.
This want of a dinner, however, was a small misfortune in comparison with others which afflicted him.