brother! Would he be what he
is, if he hadn't speculated?'

'That's true,' replied Mr Nickleby. 'Very good, my dear. Yes. I WILL
speculate, my dear.'

Speculation is a round game; the players see little or nothing of their
cards at first starting; gains MAY be great--and so may losses. The run
of luck went against Mr Nickleby. A mania prevailed, a bubble burst,
four stock-brokers took villa residences at Florence, four hundred
nobodies were ruined, and among them Mr Nickleby.

'The very house I live in,' sighed the poor gentleman, 'may be taken
from me tomorrow. Not an article of my old furniture, but will be sold
to strangers!'

The last reflection hurt him so much, that he took at once to his bed;
apparently resolved to keep that, at all events.

'Cheer up, sir!' said the apothecary.

'You mustn't let yourself be cast down, sir,' said the nurse.

'Such things happen every day,' remarked the lawyer.

'And it is very sinful to rebel against them,' whispered the clergyman.

'And what no man with a family ought to do,' added the neighbours.

Mr Nickleby shook his head, and motioning them all out of the room,
embraced his wife and children, and having pressed them by turns to
his languidly beating heart, sunk exhausted on his pillow. They were
concerned to find that his reason went astray after this; for he
babbled, for a long time, about the generosity and goodness of his
brother, and the merry old times when they were at school together.
This fit of wandering past, he solemnly commended them to One who never
deserted the widow or her fatherless children, and, smiling gently on
them, turned upon his face, and observed, that he thought he could fall
asleep.

CHAPTER 2

Of Mr Ralph Nickleby, and his Establishments, and his Undertakings, and
of a great Joint Stock Company of vast national Importance

Mr Ralph Nickleby was not, strictly speaking, what you would call
a merchant, neither was he a banker, nor an attorney, nor a special
pleader, nor a notary. He was certainly not a tradesman, and still less
could he lay any claim to the title of a professional gentleman; for it
would have been impossible to mention any recognised profession to which
he belonged. Nevertheless, as he lived in a spacious house in Golden
Square, which, in addition to a brass plate upon the street-door, had
another brass plate two sizes and a half smaller upon the left hand
door-post, surrounding a brass model of an infant's fist