"If it is necessary to throw some shade into a picture so bright, I should say that in those days his speaking had one defect: while he had always complete mastery of his subject, he rarely made the impression that the subject had complete mastery of him. He could play with it so easily, and he could play so easily with his audience, that, as part of the audience, you felt that you were not quite sure whether he was giving you all his mind or only as much of it as he considered good for you. He had not yet been gripped so tightly by the realities of life as he was later, when his sense of the wrong and misery of the world transformed his eloquence into an irresistible stream of passion and made him the most earnest and whole-hearted of comforters. As yet the bantering, laughing element was in excess; and he did not always remember where to draw the line in the _abandon_ of animal spirits. I used to wonder how it would do when he was settled as the moderator of a session of 'douce' Scotch elders. "But to us at the time it was splendid. It was in one of our sessions that Dr. Blaikie founded the College dinner, which has since proved so valuable an institution, bringing all the students together daily in a social capacity; and any day you could have told where Elmslie was seated at the table by the explosions of laughter rising in that quarter all through the meal. Men strove to sit near him, and he diffused a glow up and down, his budget of stories never getting exhausted or his flow of spirits flagging. I well remember a speech he made at the close of the first session during which the dinner existed, to thank Professor Blaikie for his efforts on behalf of the students and congratulate him on the success of his experiment. It was, perhaps, the most remarkable of all Elmslie's speeches. Professors and students alike were simply convulsed with laughter, and one explosion followed another, till the assembly was literally dissolved; yet under all the nonsense there was capital sense, and the duty which he had undertaken could not have been more gracefully or completely discharged.