Mr. Henry Augustus Constantine Stubbs (or as he distinguished himself on his new visiting cards, H.A.C. Stubbs) had taken up his abode in one of the demi-fashionable squares, among judges, physicians, barristers, and merchants, at the north side of the metropolis. Being the only lawfully begotten issue of his father, when the frail Angelina made it impossible he should have any brothers and sisters, he succeeded, by will, to three-fourths of the late Mr. Jonathan Stubbs's property, and, by oxalic acid, to the remaining fourth;[5] the affair being too sudden to permit of any further testamentary dispositions, or of any of those benevolent codicils, which sometimes have the effect of tapering down primary bequests, like Prior's Emma, "fine by degrees and beautifully less." Upon a fair computation, after a few trifling legacies were paid, and all debts satisfied, young Mr. Stubbs might calculate his inheritance, in India stock, Bank stock, houses, canal shares, and exchequer bills, at nearly eighty thousand pounds. [5] Mr. Jonathan Stubbs retired from business long before he reached his grand climacteric, to his country house at Newington Butts, with the solid dignity of at least half a plum. What length of years might have been in store for him, if he had regularly taken Dr. James's analeptic pills, it is impossible to say; but not doing so, he had occasion to send the coachman one night for an ounce of Epsom salts. They proved to be oxalic acid; and stomach-pumps not being then in existence, there was an inevitable termination to the existence of Mr. Stubbs. An "extraordinary sensation," as the newspapers have it, was produced in Newington Butts by this dreadful catastrophe.