‘Have you matriculated yet? No? Come awa’ then, and I’ll show you the way.’ He passed his arm through Alec’s as he spoke, and led him to a tiny office in a corner of the quadrangle which was half filled with students.
‘What is your name?’ asked Alec’s new friend, as they stood waiting their turn to enter their names in the volume kept for the purpose. Alec told him. ‘Mine’s Cameron—Duncan Cameron. I’m a medical. This is my third year. Have you got lodgings?’
‘Yes; at No. 210, Hanover Street.
‘Does your landlady look a decent body? I’ll come round and see if she has a room to spare for me,’ he added, without waiting for an answer.
Presently Alec obtained, in exchange for one of his father’s one-pound notes, a ticket bearing his name, and the words ‘Civis Universitatis Glasguenis’ printed in large letters underneath.
‘That’s all right,’ said Cameron; ‘now come along, and I’ll show you the Professors’ Court. You have to call on the Latin and Greek professors, and get your class-tickets. The fee is three guineas each.’ He led Alec through an archway into a second and larger quadrangle, then across it and through another archway into a third. ‘That’s the museum,’ said Cameron, pointing to a building with handsome stone columns; ‘and that’s the library,’ he added, pointing to a narrow structure, built apparently of black stone, on the right.
The two young men turned to the left, passed through an iron gateway, and found themselves in a gloomy and silent court, formed by the houses of the various professors, which, like the library, were black with smoke and soot-flakes.
After the professors of ‘Humanity’ (as Latin is called in the north) and of Greek had been duly interviewed, Alec and his friend returned to the High Street without going back to the quadrangles; and in a few minutes they pulled Mrs. Macpherson’s brightly-polished bell-handle.
‘I’ve brought a friend, a fellow-student, who wants to know if you have any more rooms to let,’ said Alec.
‘Is he a medical?’ asked the good woman, knitting her brows.