 envied and courted by all his family besides.« And Ralph always wound up
these mental soliloquies by arriving at the conclusion, that there was nothing
like money.
    Not confining himself to theory, or permitting his faculties to rust, even
at that early age, in mere abstract speculations, this promising lad commenced
usurer on a limited scale at school; putting out at good interest a small
capital of slate-pencil and marbles, and gradually extending his operations
until they aspired to the copper coinage of this realm, in which he speculated
to considerable advantage. Nor did he trouble his borrowers with abstract
calculations of figures, or references to ready-reckoners; his simple rule of
interest being all comprised in the one golden sentence, two-pence for every
half-penny, which greatly simplified the accounts, and which, as a familiar
precept, more easily acquired and retained in the memory than any known rule of
arithmetic, cannot be too strongly recommended to the notice of capitalists,
both large and small, and more especially of money-brokers and bill-discounters.
Indeed, to do these gentlemen justice, many of them are to this day in the
frequent habit of adopting it, with eminent success.
    In like manner did young Ralph Nickleby avoid all those minute and intricate
calculations of odd days, which nobody who has worked sums in simple-interest
can fail to have found most embarrassing, by establishing the one general rule
that all sums of principal and interest should be paid on pocket-money day, that
is to say, on Saturday: and that whether a loan were contracted on the Monday,
or on the Friday, the amount of interest should be, in both cases, the same.
Indeed he argued, and with great show of reason, that it ought to be rather more
for one day than for five, inasmuch as the borrower might in the former case be
very fairly presumed to be in great extremity, otherwise he would not borrow at
all with such odds against him. This fact is interesting, as illustrating the
secret connection and sympathy which always exists between great minds. Though
master Ralph Nickleby was not at that time aware of it, the class of gentlemen
before alluded to, proceed on just the same principle in all their transactions.
    From what we have said of this young gentleman, and the natural admiration
the reader will immediately conceive of his character, it may perhaps be
inferred that he is to be the hero of the work which we shall presently begin.
To set this point at rest for once and for ever, we hasten to undeceive them,
and stride
