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 exist between great minds. Though Master Ralph Nickleby was