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. Dr. Dimsdale is
my name. I am the lad's father--just come up from London to see him.
I hope he has not been overworking himself?"

A ghost of a smile played about the woman's face. "I think not, sir,"