So I had a little private fortune of three shillings, besides mother's
eighteenpence. At school they called me the copper-merchant, I had such
lots of it.

Now, even at a preparatory school, a well-regulated boy may better
himself: and I can tell you I did. I never was in any quarrels: I never
was very high in the class or very low: but there was no chap so much
respected:--and why? I'D ALWAYS MONEY. The other boys spent all
theirs in the first day or two, and they gave me plenty of cakes and
barley-sugar then, I can tell you. I'd no need to spend my own money,
for they would insist upon treating me. Well, in a week, when theirs was
gone, and they had but their threepence a week to look to for the
rest of the half-year, what did I do? Why, I am proud to say that
three-halfpence out of the threepence a week of almost all the young
gentlemen at Dr. Swishtail's, came into my pocket. Suppose, for
instance, Tom Hicks wanted a slice of gingerbread, who had the money?
Little Bob Stubbs, to be sure. "Hicks," I used to say, "I'LL buy you
three halfp'orth of gingerbread, if you'll give me threepence next
Saturday." And he agreed; and next Saturday came, and he very often
could not pay me more than three-halfpence. Then there was the
threepence I was to have THE NEXT Saturday. I'll tell you what I did
for a whole half-year:--I lent a chap, by the name of Dick Bunting,
three-halfpence the first Saturday for three-pence the next: he could
not pay me more than half when Saturday came, and I'm blest if I did
not make him pay me three-halfpence FOR THREE-AND-TWENTY WEEKS
RUNNING, making two shillings and tenpence-halfpenny. But he was a sad
dishonorable fellow, Dick Bunting; for after I'd been so kind to
him, and let him off for three-and-twenty-weeks the money he owed me,
holidays came, and threepence he owed me still. Well, according to the
common principles of practice, after six-weeks' holidays, he ought to