entional cruelty
than from an instinctive desire to recover his lost feeling of
superiority. The class was his master, but here was one of them he could
cow at any rate.

"Well?" he asked, bringing his thin finger-tips together, and flinging
one thigh across the other.

Gourlay shuffled his feet uneasily.

"Yes?" inquired the other, enjoying his discomfiture.

Gourlay lowered. "Whatna gate was this to gang on? Why couldn't he let a
blatter out of his thin mouth, and ha' done wi't?"

"I'm waiting!" said the lecturer.

The words "I apologize" rose in Gourlay, but refused to pass his throat.
No, he wouldn't, so he wouldn't! He would see the lecturer far enough,
ere he gave an apology before it was expressly required.

"Oh, that's the line you go on, is it?" said the lecturer, nodding his
head as if he had sized up a curious animal. "I see, I see! You add
contumacy to insolence, do you?... Imphm."

Gourlay was not quite sure what contumacy meant, and the uncertainty
added to his anger.

"There were others making a noise besides me," he blurted. "I don't see
why _I_ should be blamed for it all."

"Oh, you don't see why _you_ should be had up, indeed? I think we'll
bring you to a different conclusion. Yes, I think so."

Gourlay, being forced to stand always on the one spot, felt himself
swaying in a drunken stupor. He blinked at the lecturer like an angry
owl--the blinking regard of a sodden mind, yet fiery with a spiteful
rage. His wrath was rising and falling like a quick tide. He would have
liked one moment to give a rein to the Gourlay temper, and let the
lecturer have it hot and strong; the next, he was quivering in a
cowardly horror of the desperate attempt he had so nearly made. Curse
his tormentor! Why did he keep him here, when his head was aching so
badly? Another taunt was enough to spring his drunken rage.

"I wonder what you think you came to College for?" said the lecturer. "I
have been looking at your records in the class. They're the worst I ever
saw. And you're not content with that, it seems. You add misbehaviour to
gross stupidity."

"To hell wi' ye!" said Gourlay.

There was a feeling in the room as if the air was stunned. The silence
throbbed.

The lecturer, who had risen, sat down suddenly as if going at the knees,
and went white about the gills. Some men would have swept the ruffian
with a burst of generous wrath, a few might have pitied in their anger;
but this young Solomon was thi