"It would be a great satisfaction to hear the laddies answer 'The Chief End of Man,' and to say juist a word to them aboot good conduct; but you and me has an engagement, and ye ken where we're expected. I juist looked in to say----" And here the worthy man's thoughts began to wander, and he made an indistinct allusion to the _Black Bull_, so that Speug had to prompt him severely from behind. "Aye, aye! we're all poor, frail creatures, and I'm the last man to hurt the feelings of the Seminary. Seminary laddie mysel', prize medal Greek. Bygones be bygones!... No man in Muirtown I respect more than ... Speug an honourable tradesman" (breaking away on his own account with much spirit), "a faithful husband, and an affectionate father. What? All a mistake from beginning to end. Family trouble did it--conduct of a relative," and the Bailie wept. Bailies and other municipal dignitaries were a species of human beings so strange and incalculable to the Rector, that he was hardly amazed at anything that they might say; and having some vague idea that there had been a quarrel between the Seminary and some Bailie or other, about something or other, some time or other, he concluded that this was an official intimation that the quarrel was over, and that it was in style and allusion according to the habits of municipal circles. "It is," he responded, bowing again, "my grateful duty, as Rector of the Seminary, to thank you for your presence here to-day--the Mercury of the gods, if I may say so--and for your courteous intimation that the--er--controversy to which you--er--have delicately alluded is healed. Any dispute between the Council and the Seminary could only have a favourable issue. _Amantium irae amoris integratio_ has had another illustration, Mr. Bailie; but it would please us that you should hear the class translate the Ode we have in hand, which happens to be '_Ad Sodales_.'" And a boy began to translate "_Nunc est bibendum_." "Time to drink, did ye say?" and the Bailie, who had been taking a brief nap, was immediately conscious. "Man, ye never said a truer word. Work hard at yir lessons, laddies, and for ony sake dinna forget the Catechism. Yir maister has an engagement wi' me, and he'll no be back for an hour. Come awa,' man" (in a loud whisper to the amazed Rector), "it's time we were off." And the Bailie, making a hurried rush for the door, found himself in the arms of the school sergeant, who had caught the sound of the uproar in the Rector's class-room, and suspected trouble. "Preserve us a', body and soul!" cried the Crimean veteran, as he brought the Bailie to an equilibrium. "Could onybody have expected this?" And then, with much presence of mind, he closed the door of the Latin class-room and conducted the Bailie down-stairs to his cab, while the magistrate remonstrated that the Rector was coming with him, and that both were going to discuss the higher education of youth at the _Black Bull_.