"
"Tell me all about it," said Dr. Alder guardedly.
He told it, omitting nothing essential that could touch the heart or
excite the ironical humour of an academician.
Well, 'truth is more wonderful than fiction,'" said the doctor. And I
conclude the readers of this tale are all of the doctor's opinion; so
sweet to the mind is cant.
Alfred offered his certificates.
Now Dr. Alder had been asking himself in what phrases he should decline
this young genius, who was sane now, but of course had been mad, only had
forgotten the circumstance. But the temptation to get an Ireland scholar
into his Hall suddenly overpowered him. The probability that he might get
a first-class in a lucid interval was too enticing; nothing venture,
nothing have. He determined to venture a good deal.
"Mr. Hardie," said he, "this house shall always be open to good morals
and good scholarship while I preside over it, and it shall be open to
them all the more when they come to me dignified, and made sacred, by
'unmerited calamity.'"
Now this fine speech, like Minerva herself, came from the head.
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