Mind you, I don't mean 'inefficient' in every sense.
By no means.

If anyone were to come to me and say, 'Boomer, can you put your hand for me on a first-class botanist ?' I'd say, 'Take Withers.' I'd say it in a minute." This was true.

He would have.

In fact, if anyone had made this kind of rash speech, Dr.Boomer would have given away half the professoriate.
"Well, what's wrong with him ?" repeated Tomlinson, "I suppose he ain't quite up to the mark in some ways, eh ?" "Precisely," said the president, "not quite up to the mark--a very happy way of putting it.

_Capax imperii nisi imperasset_, as no doubt you are thinking to yourself.