g 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 him