Chapter 1 - Page 2

thousand pounds sterling.

As the deceased had taken no further notice of his nephew in his
lifetime, than sending to his eldest boy (who had been christened
after him, on desperate speculation) a silver spoon in a morocco
case, which, as he had not too much to eat with it, seemed a kind of
satire upon his having been born without that useful article of
plate in his mouth, Mr Godfrey Nickleby could, at first, scarcely
believe the tidings thus conveyed to him. On examination, however,
they turned out to be strictly correct. The amiable old gentleman,
it seemed, had intended to leave the whole to the Royal Humane
Society, and had indeed executed a will to that effect; but the
Institution, having been unfortunate enough, a few months before, to
save the life of a poor relation to whom he paid a weekly allowance
of three shillings and sixpence, he had, in a fit of very natural
exasperation, revoked the bequest in a codicil, and left it all to
Mr Godfrey Nickleby; with a special mention of his indignation, not
only against the society for saving the poor relation's life, but
against the poor relation also, for allowing himself to be saved.

With a portion of this property Mr Godfrey Nickleby purchased a
small farm, near Dawlish in Devonshire, whither he retired with his
wife and two children, to live upon the best interest he could get
for the rest of his money, and the little produce he could raise
from his land. The two prospered so well together that, when he
died, some fifteen years after this period, and some five after his
wife, he was enabled to leave, to his eldest son, Ralph, three
thousand pounds in cash, and to his youngest son, Nicholas, one
thousand and the farm, which was as small a landed estate as one
would desire to see.

These two brothers had been brought up together in a school at
Exeter; and, being accustomed to go home once a week, had often
heard, from their mother's lips, long accounts of their father's
sufferings in his days of poverty, and of their deceased uncle's
importance in his days of affluence: which recitals produced a very
different impression on the two: for, while the younger, who was of
a timid and retiring disposition, gleaned from thence nothing but
forewarnings to shun the great world and attach himself to the quiet
routine of a country life, Ralph, the elder, deduced from the often-
repeated tale the two great morals that riches are the only true
source of happiness and power, and that it is lawful and just to
compass their acquisition by all means short of felony. 'And,'
reasoned Ralph with himself, 'if no good came of my uncle's money
when he was alive, a great deal of good came of it after he was
dead, inasmuch as my father has got it now, and is saving