Usually, being given to gossip, he stopped chatting with anybody he chanced to meet until it was close upon his supper-time.

But the last remark sent him off.

For Stoner meant to be a starter, and he had no desire that anybody should get away in front of him.
The lodging in which Stoner kept his bachelor state was a quiet and eminently respectable one.

He had two small rooms, a parlour and a bedchamber, in the house of a widow with whom he had lodged ever since his first coming to Highmarket, nearly six years before.

In the tiny parlour he kept a few books and a writing-desk, and on those evenings which he did not spend in playing cards or billiards, he did a little intellectual work in the way of improving his knowledge of French, commercial arithmetic, and business correspondence.