From the answers to these questions Fergus Teeman formed his own short leet. It was a very short one. There was only the Rev. Farish Farintosh upon it. He took "cent.-per-cent." in the examination. Some of the others made a point or two in their host's estimation, but Farish Farintosh cleared the paper. He was just out of college that very month--which was true. (But he did not say that he had been detained a year or two, endeavouring to overcome the strange scruples of the Examination Board.) He had studied under Professor Robertson, and had frequently proved him wrong to his very face in the class, till the students could not keep from laughing (which, between ourselves, was a lie). He was no hypocrite, advanced critic, or teetotaler, and would scorn to say he was. (He smelled Fergus Teeman's breath. He had been a staunch teetotaler at another vacancy the Saturday before.) He would not open a hymn-book for thirty pounds. This was the very man for Fergus Teeman. So they made a night of it, and consumed five "rake" of hot water. Hot water is good for the preaching. But, strange to say, when the day of the voting came, the congregation would by no means have the Reverend Farish Farintosh, though his claims were vehemently urged by the grocer in a speech, with strange blanks in the places where the strong words would have come on other occasions. They elected instead a mere nobody of a young beardless boy, who had been a year or two in a city mission, and whose only recommendation was that he had very successfully worked among the poor of his district. Fergus Teeman stated his opinions of the new minister, across his counter, often and vehemently. "The laddie kens nae mair nor a guano-bag. There's nocht in him but what the spoon pits intil him. He hasna the spunk o' a rabbit. I tell ye what, we need a man o' wecht in oor kirk. _Come up oot o' there, boy; ye're lickin' that sugar again_! Na, he'll ken wha he's preachin' till, when he stands up afore me. My e'e wull be on him nicht and day. _Hae ye no thae bags made yet? Gin they're no' dune in five meenits, I'll knock the heid aff ye_!"