In no class could Gilbert use so much freedom of errancy as in that of the venerable Professor Galbraith. Every afternoon this fine old gentleman undertook to direct our studies in New Testament exegesis, and incidentally afforded his students an hour of undisturbed repose after the more exciting labours of the day.
No one who ever studied under Dr. Simeon Galbraith will forget that gentle droning voice overhead, that full-orbed moon-like countenance, over which two smaller moons of beamy spectacle seemed to be in perpetual transit, and in especial he will remember that blessed word "Hermeneutics," of which (it is said) there was once one student who could remember the meaning. He died young, much respected by all who knew him. Dreamily the great word came to you, soothing and grateful as mother's lullaby, recurrent as the wash of a quiet sea upon a beach of softest sand. "Gentlemen, I will now proceed to call your attention ... to the study of Hermeneutics ... Hermeneut ... Gegenbauer has affirmed ... but in my opeenion, gentlemen ... Hermeneutics...!" (Here you passed from the subconscious state into Nirvana.)
And so on, and so on, till the college bell clanged in the quadrangle, and it was time to file out for a wash and brush-up before dinner in hall.
Upon one afternoon every week, Professor Galbraith read with his students the "Greek Oreeginal." He prescribed half-a-dozen chapters of "Romans" or "Hebrews," and expected us to prepare them carefully. I verily believe that he imagined we did. This shows what a sanguine and amiable old gentlemen he was. The beamy spectacle belied him not.
The fact was that we stumbled through our portions by the light of nature, aided considerably by a class copy of an ingenious work known by the name of "Bagster," in which every Greek word had the English equivalent marked in plain figures underneath, and all the verbs fully parsed at the foot of the page.
The use of this was not considered wicked, because, like the early Christians, in Professor Galbraith's class we had all things common. This was our one point of resemblance to the primitive Church.
One day the Doctor, peering over his brown leather folio, discerned the meek face and beaming smile of Gilbert the Eel in the centre of Bench One, immediately beneath him.
"Ah! Mr. Denholm, will you read for us this morning—beginning at the 29th verse—of the chapter under consideration?"
And he subsided expectantly into his lecture.
Up rose Gilbert, signalling wildly with one hand for the class "Bagster" to be passed to him, and meantime grasping at the first Testament he could see about him. By the time he had read the Greek of half-a-dozen verses, the sharpness of the trouble was overpast. He held in his hands the Key of Knowledge, and translated and parsed like a Cunningham Fellow—or any other fellow.