"That's the only way to learn," he said.
"Now we shall have three minutes of give-and-take, and so ends the morning lesson." While this little scene was being enacted in the lodgings of the student, a very stout little elderly man was walking slowly down Howe Street, glancing up at the numbers upon the doors.

He was square and deep and broad, like a bottle of Geneva, with a large ruddy face and a pair of bright black eyes, which were shrewd and critical, and yet had a merry twinkle of eternal boyishness in their depths.

Bushy side whiskers, shot with grey, flanked his rubicund visage, and he threw out his feet as he walked with the air of a man who is on good terms with himself and with every one around him.
At No.13 he stopped and rapped loudly upon the door with the head of his metal-headed stick.

"Mrs.McTavish ?" he asked, as a hard-lined, angular woman responded to his summons.
"That's me, sir." "Mr.Dimsdale lives with you, I believe ?" "Third floor front, sir." "Is he in ?" Suspicion shone in the woman's eyes.

"Was it aboot a bill ?" she asked.
"A bill, my good woman! No, no, nothing of the kind.