Like most of the Glasgow citizens of that time, Watt occasionally visited his club, where he cultivated the society of men of greater culture and experience than himself.[72] As he afterwards observed to a friend, “Our conversations then, besides the usual subjects with young men, turned principally on literary topics, religion, morality, belles-lettres, &c.; and to those conversations my mind owed its first bias towards such subjects, in which they were all much my superiors, I never having attended a college, and being then but a mechanic.” [72] The club he frequented was called the Anderston Club, of which Mr. (afterwards Professor) Millar, Dr. Robert Simson, the mathematician, Dr. Adam Smith, Dr. Black, and Dr. Cullen, were members. The standing dish of the club was hen-broth, consisting of a decoction of “how-towdies” (fowls), thickened with black beans, and seasoned with pepper. Dr. Strang says Professor Simson was in the habit of counting the steps from his house to the club, so that he could tell the distance to the fraction of an inch. But it is not stated whether he counted the steps on his return, and found the number of steps the same. There was another circumstance connected with his situation at this time which must have been peculiarly agreeable to a young man of his character, aspirations, and thirst for knowledge. His shop, being conveniently situated within the College, was a favourite resort of the professors and the students. They were attracted by the ingenious instruments and models which the shop contained, and the pleasure always felt in witnessing the proceedings of a skilful mechanic at his work, but more particularly by the easy, unaffected, and original conversation of Watt himself. Though a comparative youth, the professors were usually glad to consult him on points of mechanical knowledge and practice; and the acuteness of his observation, the accuracy of his knowledge, and the readiness with which he communicated what he knew, soon rendered him a general favourite. Among his most frequent visitors were Dr. Joseph Black, the distinguished professor of chemistry, who there contracted a friendship with Watt which lasted, uninterrupted, for a period of forty years, until the Doctor’s death; Professor Simson, one of the most eminent men of his day, whom Lord Brougham has described as the restorer of the science of geometry; Dr. Dick, the Professor of Natural Philosophy; and Professor Anderson.[73] Dr. Moor and Dr. Adam Smith were also frequent callers. But of all Watt’s associates, none is more closely connected with his name and history than John Robison, then a student at Glasgow College, and afterwards Professor of Natural Philosophy at Edinburgh.