There were several men in Barbie who liked to talk in that way, and among them Puffy Importance, when graciously inclined, found ready listeners to his pompous blether about the "Univairsity." But what he liked best of all was to stop a newly-returned student in full view of the people, and talk learnedly of his courses--dear me, ay--of his courses, and his matriculations, and his lectures, and his graduations, and his thingumbobs. That was why he bore down upon our great essayist. "Allow me to congratulate you, John," he said, with heavy solemnity; for Struthers always made a congregation of his listener, and droned as if mounted for a sermon. "Ye have done excellently well this session; ye have indeed. Ex-cellently well--ex-cellently well!" Gourlay blushed and thanked him. "Tell me now," said the cleric, "do you mean to take your Arts course in three years or four? A loang Arts course is a grand thing for a clairgyman. Even if he spends half a dozen years on't he won't be wasting his time!" Gourlay glanced at his father. "I mean to try't in three," he said. His father had threatened him that he must get through his Arts in three years--without deigning, of course, to give any reason for the threat. "We-ell," said Mr. Struthers, gazing down the Fechars Road, as if visioning great things, "it will require a strenuous and devoted application--a strenuous and devoted application--even from the man of abeelity you have shown yourself to be. Tell me now," he went on, "have ye heard ainything of the new Professor of Exegesis? D'ye know how he's doing?" Young Gourlay knew nothing of the new Professor of Exegesis, but he answered, "Very well, I believe," at a venture. "Oh, he's sure to do well, he's sure to do well! He's one of the best men we have in the Church. I have just finished his book on the Epheesians. It's most profound! It has taken me a whole year to master it." ("Garvie on the Ephesians" is a book of a hundred and eighty pages.) "And, by the way," said the parson, stooping to Scotch in his ministerial jocoseness, "how's auld Tam, in whose class you were a prize-winner? He was appointed to the professoriate the same year that I obtained my licence. I remember to have heard him deliver a lecture on German philosophy, and I thought it excellently good. But perhaps," he added, with solemn and pondering brows--"perhaps he was a little too fond of Hegel. Yess, I am inclined to think that he was a little too fond of Hegel." Mrs. Eccles, listening from the Black Bull door, wondered if Hegel was a drink. "He's very popular," said young Gourlay. "Oh, he's sure to be popular; he merits the very greatest popple-arity. And he would express himself as being excellently well pleased with your theme? What did he say of it, may I venture to inquire?" Beneath the pressure of his father's presence young Gourlay did not dare to splurge. "He seemed to think there was something in it," he answered, modestly enough.