"Vairy well, Mr. Denholm; vairy well indeed. You may now sit down while I proceed to expound the passage!"
Whereupon Gibby the Eel ungratefully pitched the faithful "Bagster" on the bench and disappeared under the same himself on a visit to Nicholson McFeat, who sat in the middle of the class-room.
For five minutes—ten—fifteen, the gentle voice droned on from the rostrum, the word "Hermeneutics" discharging itself at intervals with the pleasing gurgle of an intermittent spring. Then the Professor returned suddenly to his Greek Testament.
"Mr. Denholm, you construed vairy well last time. Be good enough to continue at the place you left off. Mr. Denholm—where is Mister—Mister Den—holm?"
And the moon-like countenance rose from its eclipse behind six volumes of Owen (folio edition), while the two smaller moons in permanent transit directed themselves upon the vacant place in Bench One, from which Gibby the Eel had construed so glibly with the efficient aid of "Bagster."
"Mister—Mist—er Denholm?"
The Professor knew that he was absent-minded, but (if the expression be allowable) he could have sworn——.
"I am here, sir!"
Gibby the Eel, a little shame-faced and rumpled as to hair, was standing plump in the very middle of the class-room, in the place where he had been endeavouring to persuade Nick McFeat to lend him his dress clothes "to go to a conversazione in," which request Nick cruelly persisted in refusing, alleging first, that he needed the garments himself, and secondly, that the Eel desired to go to no "conversazione," but contrariwise to take a certain Madge Robertson to the theatre.
At this moment the fateful voice of the Professor broke in upon them just as they were rising to the height of their great argument.