in her turn had taken him for the
same reason. Thus two people who cannot afford to play cards for money,
sometimes sit down to a quiet game for love.

Some ill-conditioned persons who sneer at the life-matrimonial, may
perhaps suggest, in this place, that the good couple would be better
likened to two principals in a sparring match, who, when fortune is low
and backers scarce, will chivalrously set to, for the mere pleasure
of the buffeting; and in one respect indeed this comparison would hold
good; for, as the adventurous pair of the Fives' Court will afterwards
send round a hat, and trust to the bounty of the lookers-on for the
means of regaling themselves, so Mr Godfrey Nickleby and HIS partner,
the honeymoon being over, looked out wistfully into the world, relying
in no inconsiderable degree upon chance for the improvement of their
means. Mr Nickleby's income, at the period of his marriage, fluctuated
between sixty and eighty pounds PER ANNUM.

There are people enough in the world, Heaven knows! and even in London
(where Mr Nickleby dwelt in those days) but few complaints prevail, of
the population being scanty. It is extraordinary how long a man may look
among the crowd without discovering the face of a friend, but it is no
less true. Mr Nickleby looked, and looked, till his eyes became sore
as his heart, but no friend appeared; and when, growing tired of the
search, he turned his eyes homeward, he saw very little there to relieve
his weary vision. A painter who has gazed too long upon some glaring
colour, refreshes his dazzled sight by looking upon a darker and more
sombre tint; but everything that met Mr Nickleby's gaze wore so black
and gloomy a hue, that he would have been beyond description refreshed
by the very reverse of the contrast.

At length, after five years, when Mrs Nickleby had presented her husband
with a couple of sons, and that embarrassed gentleman, impressed with
the necessity of making some provision for his family, was seriously
revolving in his mind a little commercial speculation of insuring his
life next quarter-day, and then falling from the top of the Monument by
accident, there came, one morning, by the general post, a black-bordered
letter to inform him how his uncle, Mr Ralph Nickleby, was dead, and
had left him the bulk of his little property, amounting in all to five
thousand pounds sterling.

As the deceased had taken no further notice of his nephew in his
lifetime, than sendin