Once in London, the tide of his fortune turned. He soon found plenty of work and got good wages. In a month his wife was sent for, and the two worked so industriously and lived so economically, that before long Nancy changed her cloth cloak for one of silk, and her worthy husband indulged in the luxury of a _greatcoat_, the first he had ever worn. When he had been in London about four months he received tidings of the death of his grandfather, who had left ten pounds apiece to each of his grandchildren. He was so ignorant of money matters that he had no notion of obtaining the money except by going down to Somersetshire to fetch it, and the sum was accounted so prodigious, that he at once set off to claim his property; "so that," he says, "it cost me about half the money in going down for it and in returning to town again." "With the remainder of the money," he adds, "we purchased household goods; but as we then had not sufficient to furnish a room, we worked hard and lived hard, so that in a short time we had a room furnished with our own goods; and I believe that Alexander the Great never reflected on his immense acquisitions with half the heart-felt enjoyment which we experienced on this capital attainment." Now and then he visited the old bookshops and added a few books to his small library. One Christmas Eve he went out with half a crown in his pocket to purchase the Christmas dinner. Passing by an old bookshop, he could not resist the inducement to turn in and look over the stock. He intended to spend only a few pence on some book; but a copy of Young's "Night Thoughts," which he very much coveted, was so tempting a prize, that, without hesitation, he laid down his half-crown for the purchase of it. On returning home, he had no slight difficulty to persuade his wife of "the superiority of intellectual pleasures over sensual gratifications." "I think," said he to his patient spouse, "that I have acted wisely; for had I bought _a dinner_, we should have eaten it to-morrow, and the pleasure would have been soon over; but should we live fifty years longer, we shall have the 'Night Thoughts' to feast upon."