COLLEAGUES 163 



disputatious element has been commented on by 

 strangers : it would not touch Fleeming, who was 

 himself regarded, even in this metropolis of disputa- 

 tion, as a thorny tablemate. To golf unhappily 

 he did not take, and golf is a cardinal virtue in 

 the city of the winds. Nor did he become an 

 archer of the Queen's Body Guard, which is the 

 Chiltern Hundreds of the distasted golfer. He 

 did not even frequent the Evening Club, where his 

 colleague Tait (in my day) was so punctual and so 

 genial. So that in some ways he stood outside of 

 the lighter and kindlier life of his new home. I 

 should not like to say that he was generally popular ; 

 but there as elsewhere, those who knew him well 

 enough to love him, loved him well. And he, upon 

 his side, liked a place where a dinner party was not 

 of necessity unintellectual, and where men stood 

 up to him in argument. 



The presence of his old classmate, Tait, was one Coi- 

 of his early attractions to the chair ; and now that 

 Fleeming is gone again, Tait still remains, ruling 

 and really teaching his great classes. Sir Robert 

 Christison was an old friend of his mother's ; Sir 

 Alexander Grant, Kelland and Sellar, were new 

 acquaintances and highly valued ; and these too, 

 all but the last, have been taken from their friends 

 and labours. Death has been busy in the Senatus. 

 I will speak elsewhere of Fleeming's demeanour to 

 his students ; and it will be enough to add here 



