Any lad who showed some aptitude, or whose father insisted on the higher education, was allured into geometry and raised to the dignity of the blackboard, where he did his work in face of the school with fear and trembling. This was public life, and carried extremes of honour and disgrace. When Willie Pirie appeared at the board--who is now a Cambridge don of such awful learning that his juniors, themselves distinguished persons, can only imagine where he is in pure mathematics--the school, by tacit permission, suspended operations to see the performance. As Willie progressed, throwing in an angle here and a circle there, and utilising half the alphabet for signs, while he maintained the reasoning from point to point in his high, shrill voice, Bulldog stood a pace aside, a pointer in one hand and in the other a cloth with which at a time he would wipe his forehead till it was white with chalk, and his visage was glorious to behold. When the end came, Bulldog would seize the word out of Pirie's mouth and shout, "Q. E. D., Q ... E ... D. Splendid. Did ye follow that, laddies?" taking snuff profusely, with the cloth under one arm and the pointer under the other. "William Pirie, ye'll be a wrangler if ye hae grace o' continuance. Splendid!" It was otherwise when Jock Howieson tried to indicate the nature of an isosceles triangle and confused it with a square, supporting his artistic efforts with remarks which reduced all the axioms of Euclid to one general ruin. For a while the master explained and corrected, then he took refuge in an ominous silence, after which, at each new development, he played on Jock with the pointer, till Jock, seeing him make for the cane, modestly withdrew, but did not reach his place of retreat without assistance and much plain truth. "It's a shame to take any fee from your father, Jock Howieson, and it's little use trying to give ye any education. Ye've the thickest head and the least sense in all the schule. Man, they should take you home and set ye on eggs to bring out chickens; ye micht manage that wi' care. The first three propositions, Jock, before ye leave this room, without a slip, or _ma certes_!" and Jock understood that if he misused his time his instructor would make good use of his. It was Bulldog's way to promenade the empty schoolroom for ten minutes before the reassembling at two, and it was rare indeed that a boy should be late. When one afternoon there were only nineteen present and forty-three absent, he could only look at Dowbiggin, and when that exemplary youth explained that the school had gone up to the top of the Meadow for a bathe, and suggested they were still enjoying themselves, Bulldog was much lifted. "Bathing is a healthy exercise, and excellent for the mind, but it's necessary to bring a glow to the skin aifterwards, or there micht be a chill," and he searched out and felt a superior cane kept for the treatment of truants and other grievous offenders.