rength of it. He pretended to be
exceedingly jocular and familiar with his pupils, but was really always
on the alarm for his dignity. His great delight was to impress the
freshmen with an idea of his abilities and his condescension. "Always
come to me, Mr ----, if you find any difficulties in your reading--I
shall be most happy to assist you." This language, repeated to all in
turn, was, not unnaturally, literally understood by the matter-of-fact
John Brown; who, perhaps, could see no good reason why a college tutor
should _not_ be ready to aid, as far as he could, the private studies of
those who are so often in want of sensible advice and encouragement.
However, it did not occur to him, when he took up to Mr Silver's rooms
one morning after lecture, a passage that had puzzled him, that he was
doing a very odd thing, and that the tutor thought so. As these
consultations became more frequent, however, he began to perceive, what
other men were not slow to tell him, that Mr Silver thought him a bore.
And the moment this flashed upon him, with his unfortunate antipathy to
any thing like humbug, he began another war of independence. He selected
crabbed passages; got them up carefully by the help of translations,
scholiasts, and clever friends; and then took them up hot to Mr Silver.
And when he detected him slurring a difficulty instead of explaining it,
or saying there was no difficulty at all, John would bring up against
him his array of objections to this or that rendering, and arguments for
and against various readings, &c., till Mr Silver found himself fairly
out of his depth. At first this puzzled him, and he very nearly
committed the mistake of pronouncing John Brown a first-rate scholar in
the common-room; but when he found his performance at lecture did not by
any means keep pace with the remarkable erudition sometimes displayed by
him in private, he began in his turn to suspect the trick. He dared not
refuse to play his part, when called upon, in these learned discussions,
though he dreaded them more and more; for his college reputation was at
stake, and there were some among the older fellows who looked upon him
as rather an assuming young man for understanding what they did not
pretend to, and would have been glad to have had a joke against him; but
he began cordially to hate John Brown; he gave him all the difficult
bits he could at lecture; sneered at him when he dared; and practised
all those amiable embellish