r, with the result of
much enjoyable friction, and an almost perfect neglect of work. He was
respected and never was annoyed, not even by ruffians like Howieson,
because everyone knew that the Rector was an honourable gentleman, with
all his eccentric ways, and the _Muirtown Advertiser_ had a leader every
spring on the achievements of his scholars. Edinburgh professors who
came to examine the school used to fill up their speeches on the
prize-day with graceful compliments to the Rector, supported by
classical quotations, during which the boys cheered rapturously and the
Rector looked as if he were going to be hung. He was one of the
recognised glories of Muirtown, and was freely referred to at municipal
banquets by bailies whose hearts had grown merry within them drinking
the Queen's health, and was associated in the peroration to the toast of
"the Fair City" with the North Meadow and the Fair Maid, and the River
Tay and the County Gaol.

Bulldog was of another breed. Whatever may have been his negligences of
dress and occupation in private life--and on this subject Nestie and
Speug told fearful lies--he exhibited the most exasperating regularity
in public, from his copper-plate handwriting to his speckless dress, but
especially by an inhuman and absolutely sinful punctuality. No one with
a heart within him and some regard to the comfort of his fellow
creatures, especially boys, had any right to observe times and seasons
with such exactness. During all our time, except on the one great
occasion I wish to record, he was never known to be ill, not even with a
cold; and it was said that he never had been for a day off duty, even in
the generation before us. His erect, spare frame, without an ounce of
superfluous flesh, seemed impervious to disease, and there was a feeling
in the background of our minds that for any illness to have attacked
Bulldog would have been an act of impertinence which he would have known
how to deal with. It was firmly believed that for the last fifty
years--and some said eighty, but that was poetry--Bulldog had entered
his class-room every morning, except on Saturdays, Sundays, and
holidays, at 8.50, and was ready to begin work at the stroke of nine.
There was a pleasant story that in the days of our fathers there had
been such a fall of snow and so fierce a wind that the bridge had been
drifted up, and no one could cross that morning from the other side. The
boys from the south side of the town ha