stic economy of Dotheboys Hall, and at the
last into personal conflict with its one-eyed principal, the rascally
Yorkshire school-master.

The Gadshill collection of thin octavos, comprising the whole series of
Readings, includes within it two copies of "Mrs. Gamp" and two copies of
"Nicholas Nickleby." Whereas, on comparing the duplicates of Mrs. Gamp,
the two versions appear to be so slightly different that they are all
but identical, a marked contrast is observable at a glance between the
two Nicklebys. Each Reading is descriptive, it is true, of his sayings
and doings at the Yorkshire school. But, even externally, one of the two
copies is marked "Short Time,"--the love-passages with Miss Squeers bemg
entirely struck out, and no mention whatever being made of John Browdie,
the corn-factor. The wretched school, the sordid rascal who keeps
it, Mrs. Squeers, poor, forlorn Smike, and a few of his scarecrow
companions--these, in the short-time version, and these alone,
constitute the young usher's surroundings. In here recalling to
recollection the "Nicholas Nickleby" Reading at all, however, we select,
as a matter of course, the completer version, the one for which the
generality of hearers had an evident preference: the abbreviated version
being always regarded as capital, so far as it went; but even at the
best, with all the go and dash of its rapid delivery, insufficient.

Everything, even, we should imagine, to one un-acquainted with the
novel, was ingeniously explained by the Reader in a sentence or two at
starting. Nicholas Nickleby was described as arriving early one November
morning, at the Saracen's Head, to join, in his new capacity (stripling
though he was) as scholastic assistant, Mr. Squeers, "the cheap--the
terribly cheap" Yorkshire schoolmaster. The words just given in inverted
commas are those written in blue ink in the Novelist's handwriting on
the margin of his longer Reading copy. As also are the following words,
epitomising in a breath the position of the young hero when the story
commences--"Inexperienced, sanguine, and thrown upon the world with
no adviser, and his bread to win," the manuscript interpolation thus
intimates: the letterpress then relating in its integrity that Nicholas
had engaged himself as tutor at Mr. Wackford Squeers's academy, on the
strength of the memorable advertisement in the London newspapers.
The advertisement, that is, comprising within it the long series of
accomplishmen