Note 8 to Chapter 9 of the author's Dickens and the Rhetoric of Laughter which Clarendon Press published in 1972. It has been included in the Victorian Web with the kind permission of the author and of the Clarendon Press, which retains copyright.
This is almost literally as well as symbolically true. His mother had agreed to marry his father only because she was unable to pay the bill he held (II. V).
Last modified: 3 May 2001