He lay back in his big chair, a complacent dominie again. "Guess the
chances of my laddies!" he cried, forgetting what he had just said, and
that there was a Tommy to bother him. "I tell you, sir, that's a matter
on which I'm never deceived, I can tell the results so accurately that a
wise Senatus would give my lot the bursaries I say they'll carry,
without setting them down to examination-papers at all." And for the
next half-hour he was reciting cases in proof of his sagacity.

"Wonderful!" chimed in McLean. "I see it is evident you can tell me how
Tommy Sandys will do," but at that Cathro's rush of words again subsided
into a dribble.

"He's the worst Latinist that ever had the impudence to think of
bursaries," he groaned.

"And his Greek--" asked McLean, helping on the conversation as far as
possible.

"His Greek, sir, could be packed in a pill-box."

"That does not sound promising. But the best mathematicians are
sometimes the worst linguists."

"His Greek is better than his mathematics," said Cathro, and he fell
into lamentation. "I have had no luck lately," he sighed. "The laddies I
have to prepare for college are second-raters, and the vexing thing is,
that when a real scholar is reared in Thrums, instead of his being
handed over to me for the finishing, they send him to Mr. Ogilvy in
Glenquharity. Did Miss Ailie ever mention Gavin Dishart to you--the
minister's son? I just craved to get the teaching of that laddie, he was
the kind you can cram with learning till there's no room left for
another spoonful, and they bude send him to Mr. Ogilvy, and you'll see
he'll stand high above my loons in the bursary list. And then Ogilvy
will put on sic airs that there will be no enduring him. Ogilvy and I,
sir, we are engaged in an everlasting duel; when we send students to the
examinations, it is we two who are the real competitors, but what chance
have I, when he is represented by a Gavin Dishart and my man is Tommy
Sandys?"

McLean was greatly disappointed. "Why send Tommy up at all if he is so
backward?" he said. "You are sure you have not exaggerated his
deficiencies?"

"Well, not much at any rate. But he baffles me; one day I think him a
perfect numskull, and the next he makes such a show of the small drop
of scholarship he has that I'm not sure but what he may be a genius."

"That sounds better. Does he study hard?"

"Study! He is the most careless whelp that ever--"

"But if I were to give him an indu