Forsytes, as is generally admitted, have shells, like that extremely useful little animal which is made into Turkish delight, in other words, they are never seen, or if seen would not be recognised, without habitats, composed of circumstance, property, acquaintances, and wives, which seem to move along with them in their passage through a world composed of thousands of other Forsytes with their habitats.

Without a habitat a Forsyte is inconceivable--he would be like a novel without a plot, which is well-known to be an anomaly.
To Forsyte eyes Bosinney appeared to have no habitat, he seemed one of those rare and unfortunate men who go through life surrounded by circumstance, property, acquaintances, and wives that do not belong to them.
His rooms in Sloane Street, on the top floor, outside which, on a plate, was his name, 'Philip Baynes Bosinney, Architect,' were not those of a Forsyte .-- He had no sitting-room apart from his office, but a large recess had been screened off to conceal the necessaries of life--a couch, an easy chair, his pipes, spirit case, novels and slippers.

The business part of the room had the usual furniture; an open cupboard with pigeon-holes, a round oak table, a folding wash-stand, some hard chairs, a standing desk of large dimensions covered with drawings and designs.
June had twice been to tea there under the chaperonage of his aunt.
He was believed to have a bedroom at the back.
As far as the family had been able to ascertain his income, it consisted of two consulting appointments at twenty pounds a year, together with an odd fee once in a way, and--more worthy item--a private annuity under his father's will of one hundred and fifty pounds a year.
What had transpired concerning that father was not so reassuring.

It appeared that he had been a Lincolnshire country doctor of Cornish extraction, striking appearance, and Byronic tendencies--a well-known figure, in fact, in his county.

Bosinney's uncle by marriage, Baynes, of Baynes and Bildeboy, a Forsyte in instincts if not in name, had but little that was worthy to relate of his brother-in-law.
"An odd fellow!' he would say: 'always spoke of his three eldest boys as 'good creatures, but so dull'; they're all doing capitally in the Indian Civil! Philip was the only one he liked.