which she remarked to him that it had been a fine day, or some other equally momentous observation.  It follows that, as the day of the examination came round, the student, in his lucid intervals, began to feel anxious for the result.  He had known his work fairly well, however, at one time, and with luck he might pull through.  He made an energetic attempt to compress a month’s reading into a week, and when the day for the written examination came round he had recovered some of his lost ground.  The papers suited him fairly well, and he felt as he left the hall that he had had better fortune than he deserved.  The viva voce ordeal was the one, however, which he knew would be most dangerous to him, and he dreaded it accordingly.

It was a raw spring morning when his turn came to go up.  His father and Kate drove round with him to the University gates.

“Keep up your pluck, Tom,” the old gentleman said.  “Be cool, and have all your wits about you.  Don’t lose your head, whatever you do.”

“I seem to have forgotten the little I ever knew,” Tom said dolefully, as he trudged up the steps.  As he looked back he saw Kate wave her hand to him cheerily, and it gave him fresh heart.

“We shall hope to see you at lunch time,” his father shouted after him.  “Mind you bring us good news.”  As he spoke the carriage rattled away down the Bridges, and Tom joined the knot of expectant students who were waiting at the door of the great hall.

A melancholy group they were, sallow-faced, long-visaged and dolorous, partly from the effects of a long course of study and partly from their present trepidation.  It was painful to observe their attempts to appear confident and unconcerned as they glanced round the heavens, as if to observe the state of the weather, or examined with well-feigned archaeological fervour the inscriptions upon the old University walls.  Most painful of all was it, when some one, plucking up courage, would venture upon a tiny joke, at which the whole company would gibber in an ostentatious way, as though to show that even in this dire pass the appreciation of humour still remained with them.  At times, when any of their number alluded to the examination or detailed the questions which had been propounded to Brown or Baker the day before, the mask of unconcern would be dropped, and the whole assembly would glare eagerly and silently at the speaker.  Generally on such occasions matters are made infinitely worse by some Job’s comforter, who creeps about suggesting abstruse questions, and hinting that they represent some examiner’s particular hobby.  Such a one came to Dimsdale’s elbow, and quenched the last ray of hope which lingered in the young man’s bosom.

“What do you know about cacodyl?” was his impressive question.

“Cacodyl?” Tom cried aghast.  “It’s some sort of antediluvian reptile, isn’t it?”

The questioner broke into a sickly smile.  “No,” he said.  “It’s an organic explosive chemical compound.  You’re sure to be asked about cacodyl.  Tester’s dead on it.  He asks every one how it is prepared.”