"I know Mr. Owen at Oxford, I have never been here before."
She laughed for a moment and then said she should have to ask the Professor for the address, but just as I was going to say I would write and ask him to forward my letter, a door opened on my right, and an enormous man in a blue pair of trousers and a flannel shirt came out into the passage.
"This gent wants Mr. 'Ubert's address," the servant said, and disappeared very quickly up another flight of stairs.
"Are you the Professor?" I asked.
"That's me."
I held out my hand, but the passage was dark and his attempt to get hold of it went wide.
"Will you come into my room? Business, I suppose?"
I said it was business, and walked into a small sitting-room, which seemed to be furnished principally with a table, a big arm-chair, and empty bottles.
"I'm cleaning up a bit to-day, you must excuse the bottles," he said, and put his hands on the table. I would have excused everything if only the room had not been so dreadfully close, and I stood while the Professor looked at the bottles and finally picked one up and put it down again in the same place. Then, as if the exertion was too much for him, he sank with a thud into the chair.
"You aren't well, I am afraid."