Such a feat is comparatively easy in a small class;
but I have misbehaved in smaller classes and under eyes more
Olympian than Fleeming Jenkin's. He was simply a man from whose
reproof one shrank; in manner the least buckrammed of mankind, he
had, in serious moments, an extreme dignity of goodness. So it was
that he obtained a power over the most insubordinate of students,
but a power of which I was myself unconscious. I was inclined to
regard any professor as a joke, and Fleeming as a particularly good
joke, perhaps the broadest in the vast pleasantry of my curriculum.
I was not able to follow his lectures; I somehow dared not
misconduct myself, as was my customary solace; and I refrained from
attending. This brought me at the end of the session into a
relation with my contemned professor that completely opened my
eyes. During the year, bad student as I was, he had shown a
certain leaning to my society; I had been to his house, he had
asked me to take a humble part in his theatricals; I was a master
in the art of extracting a certificate even at the cannon's mouth;
and I was under no apprehension.
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