He did not wish to get lodgings in the outskirts, for he thought that would remove him from every centre of action or employment.  But he saw no lodgings anywhere.  Growing tired and hungry, he went at length into an eating-house, which he thought looked cheap; and proceeded to dine upon a cinder, which had been a steak.  He tried to delude himself into the idea that it was a steak still, by withdrawing his attention from it, and fixing it upon a newspaper two days old.  Finding nothing of interest, he dallied with the advertisements.  He soon came upon a column from which single gentlemen appeared to be in request as lodgers.  Looking over these advertisements, which had more interest for him at the moment than all home and foreign news, battles and murders included, he drew a map from his pocket, and began to try to find out some of the localities indicated.  Most of them were in or towards the suburbs.  At last he spied one in a certain square, which, after long and diligent search, and with the assistance of the girl who waited on him, he found on his map.  It was in the neighbourhood of Holborn, and, from the place it occupied in the map, seemed central enough for his vague purposes.  Above all, the terms were said to be moderate.  But no description of the character of the lodgings was given, else Hugh would not have ventured to look at them.  What he wanted was something of the same sort as he had had in Aberdeen —­ a single room, or a room and bed-room, for which he should have to pay only a few shillings a week.

Refreshed by his dinner, wretched as it was, he set out again.  To his great joy, the rain was over, and an afternoon sun was trying, with some slight measure of success, to pierce the clouds of the London atmosphere:  it had already succeeded with the clouds of the terrene.  He soon found his way into Holborn, and thence into the square in question.  It looked to him very attractive; for it was quietness itself, and had no thoroughfare, except across one of its corners.  True, it was invaded by the universal roar —­ for what place in London is not? —­ but it contributed little or nothing of its own manufacture to the general production of sound in the metropolis.  The centre was occupied by grass and trees, inclosed within an iron railing.  All the leaves were withered, and many had dropped already on the pavement below.  In the middle stood the statue of a queen, of days gone by.  The tide of fashion had rolled away far to the west, and yielded a free passage to the inroads of commerce, and of the general struggle for ignoble existence, upon this once favoured island in its fluctuating waters.  Old windows, flush with the external walls, whence had glanced fair eyes to which fashion was even dearer than beauty, now displayed Lodgings to Let between knitted curtains, from which all idea of drapery had been expelled by severe starching.  Amongst these he soon found the house he sought, and shrunk from its important size and bright equipments;