CHAPTER II.
THE opportunity I wanted presented itself in a curious way, and led, unexpectedly enough, to some rather important consequences.
I have already stated, among the other branches of human attainment which I acquired at the public school, that I learned to draw caricatures of the masters who were so obliging as to educate me.

I had a natural faculty for this useful department of art.

I improved it greatly by practice in secret after I left school, and I ended by making it a source of profit and pocket money to me when I entered the medical profession.

What was I to do?
I could not expect for years to make a halfpenny, as a physician.

My genteel walk in life led me away from all immediate sources of emolument, and my father could only afford to give me an allowance which was too preposterously small to be mentioned.