THE EPISODE OF THE LETTER WITH THE BASINGSTOKE POSTMARK I have a vast respect for my grandfather.

He was a man of forethought.
He left me a modest little income of seven hundred a-year, well invested.

Now, seven hundred a-year is not exactly wealth; but it is an unobtrusive competence; it permits a bachelor to move about the world and choose at will his own profession.

_I_ chose medicine; but I was not wholly dependent upon it.

So I honoured my grandfather's wise disposition of his worldly goods; though, oddly enough, my cousin Tom (to whom he left his watch and five hundred pounds) speaks MOST disrespectfully of his character and intellect.
Thanks to my grandfather's silken-sailed barque, therefore, when I found myself practically dismissed from Nathaniel's I was not thrown on my beam-ends, as most young men in my position would have been; I had time and opportunity for the favourite pastime of looking about me.