the centre of the room, was a
courteous and urbane personage of affable exterior. He was further
hedged in with a species of outwork of the sentry-box formation, which
concealed his lower limbs from view:--a precaution evidently designed to
protect him from the fierce onslaught of some demented candidate--who,
when suffering from the continuous effect of "examination on the brain,"
might have been suddenly goaded to frenzy by a string of unsolvable
questions.

This gentleman entreated us, as a first step, to "stand by" the forms--
like a crew of sailors about to make sail; and then, in the words of the
Unjust Steward, to "sit down and write quickly," each in front of one of
the little piles of stationery.

We obeyed this injunction as well as we were able, although many of us,
unaccustomed to rapid penmanship, found the latter part of the order
rather difficult of accomplishment. It was all very well to say, "Sit
down and write quickly!" but, what, if we had nothing to say, and didn't
know how to say it?

Ah!

Under the tutelage of the superintending chief, lesser satellites
ministering occasionally to our wants in the matter of pens and paper,
and distributing fresh series of questions to us every hour or so, we
were for three days put through the paces of what the examiners held to
be "the requirements of a sound liberal English education"--I,
certainly, should, however, have thought but "small potatoes," as the
Americans say, of the general attainments of the lot of us in this
respect, if all we possessed were tested on the occasion, or even a
tithe of our knowledge!

If one could have set aside one's own interest in the contest, the scene
in that long low room of the Polite Letter Writer Commissioners was
amusing enough.

You should only have watched the anxious glances we bent around on each
other, after first scanning over the printed lists supplied to puzzle
us! How we cordially sympathised with the hopeless vacant stare of
ignorance, proceeding from some tall, bearded individual, well on in his
twenties--who looked far more fit to shoulder a musket and go to the
wars, like our French friend, "Malbrook," than to be thus condemned
again to school-boy duties! How we glared, also, at any brilliant
competitor, whose down-bent head seemed too intent on mastering the
subject set before him; and, whose ready pen appeared to be travelling
over paper at far too expeditious a rate for our chances of winning the