stair, and a lean, wiry-looking, middle-sized young fellow
stepped into the room. With a nod of greeting he pushed the table over
to one side, threw off his two upper garments, and pulled on a pair of
the boxing-gloves from the corner. Dimsdale had already done the same,
and was standing, a model of manly grace and strength, in the centre of
the room.

"Practice your lead, Jack. About here." He tapped the centre of his
forehead with his swollen gauntlet.

His companion poised himself for a moment, and then, lashing out with
his left hand, came home with a heavy thud on the place indicated.
Dimsdale smiled gently and shook his head.

"It won't do," he said.

"I hit my hardest," the other answered apologetically.

"It won't do. Try again."

The visitor repeated the blow with all the force that he could command.

Dimsdale shook his head again despondently. "You don't seem to catch
it," he said. "It's like this." He leaned forward, there was the sound
of a sharp clip, and the novice shot across the room with a force that
nearly sent his skull through the panel of the door.

"That's it," said Dimsdale mildly.

"Oh, it is, is it?" the other responded, rubbing his head.
"It's deucedly interesting, but I think I would understand it better if
I saw you do it to some one else. It is something between the explosion
of a powder magazine and a natural convulsion."

His instructor smiled grimly. "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