OF FOUR MINISTERS WHO AFTERWARDS BOASTED THAT THEY HAD KNOWN TOMMY SANDYS Bursary examination time had come, and to the siege of Aberdeen marched a hungry half-dozen--three of them from Thrums, two from the Glenuharity school.

The sixth was Tod Lindertis, a ploughman from the Dubb of Prosen, his place of study the bothy after lousing time (Do you hear the klink of quoits ?) or a one-roomed house near it, his tutor a dogged little woman, who knew not the accusative from the dative, but never tired of holding the book while Tod recited.

Him someone greets with the good-natured jeer, "It's your fourth try, is it no, Tod ?" and he answers cheerily, "It is, my lathie, and I'll keep kick, kick, kicking away to the _n_th time." "Which means till the door flies open," says the dogged little woman, who is the gallant Tod's no less gallant wife, and already the mother of two.

I hope Tod will succeed this time.
The competitors, who were to travel part of the way on their shanks, met soon after daybreak in Cathro's yard, where a little crowd awaited them, parents trying to look humble, Mr.Duthie and Ramsay Cameron thinking of the morning when they set off on the same errand--but the results were different, and Mr.Duthie is now a minister, and Ramsay is in the middle of another wob.

Both dominies were present, hating each other, for that day only, up to the mouth, where their icy politeness was a thing to shudder at, and each was drilling his detachment to the last moment, but by different methods; for while Mr.Cathro entreated Joe Meldrum for God's sake to mind that about the genitive, and Willie Simpson to keep his mouth shut and drink even water sparingly, Mr.
Ogilvy cracked jokes with Gav Dishart and explained them to Lauchlan McLauchlan.