"Nonsense, papa—I will not allow you to think of such a thing!" cried Miss Girnigo. "Besides, Mr. Denholm is coming to supper to-night, and we will talk botany all the time!"
* * * * *
Which was why the Eel, falling off his bicycle at 1.45 p.m. that same day in front of my house in Cairn Edward (sixteen miles away), burst into my consulting-room with the following demand, proclaimed in frenzied accents: "Lend me your Bentley's Botany, or something—not that beastly jaw-breaking German thing you are so fond of, but something plain and easy, with the names of all the plants in. I have the whole thing to get up by eight o'clock to-night, and I'll eat my head if I can remember what a cotyledon is!"
It is believed that on the way back the Eel studied Bentley, cunningly adjusted on the handlebar, with loops of string to keep the pages from fluttering. (He was a trick-rider of repute.) At any rate, he did not waste his time, and arrived at the manse so full of botanical terms that he had considerable difficulty in making himself intelligible to the maid, who on this occasion, being cleaned up, opened the door to him in state.
This was the beginning of the taming of the tiger. Gilbert preached the next forenoon, and pleased the Doctor greatly by the excellent taste of his opening remarks upon his text, which was, "To preach the gospel ... and not to boast in another man's line of things made ready to our hand."
The preacher, as a new and original departure, divided his subject into three heads, as followeth: First, "The Duty of Respect for Ecclesiastical Superiors"; second, "The Duty of Christian Liberality" (he had to drag this in neck and crop); and thirdly, "The Supreme Duty of Humility in the Young with respect to their Elders."
While he was looking it over on Sunday morning Gilbert heartily confounded his friend Begg for forgetting the other fifteen divisions of Dr. Girnigo's sermons.
"I could have made a much better appearance if that fellow Begg had had any sense!" he said to himself. "But" (with a sigh) "I must just do the best I can with these."
Nevertheless, Dr. Girnigo considered that Gibby had surpassed himself in his application. He showed how any good that he might do in the parish must not be set down to his credit, but to that of Another who had so long laboured among them; and how that he (the preacher), being but "as one entering upon another man's line of things," it behoved him above all things not to be boastful.
"A very sound address—quite remarkable in one so young!" was the Doctor's verdict as he met the Session after the close of Gilbert's first service.