CHAP. IV.] HOLIDAYS AT GLENLAIR. 67 



was received in Edinburgh by his aunt, Miss Cay. 

 He writes to his father, October 14, 1844: 



I like P 1 better than B . 2 We have lots of 



jokes, and he speaks a great deal, and we have not so much 

 monotonous parsing. In the English, Milton is better than 

 history of Greece. ... I was at Uncle John's, 3 and he showed 

 me his new electrotype, with which he made a copper impres- 

 sion of the beetle. He can plate silver with it as well as 

 copper, and he gave me a | | thing with which it may be 

 done. At night I have generally made vases. 



This letter is sealed with the scarabaeus referred 

 to as " the beetle." 



In the next letter we have a trace of his hesitation 

 not being yet conquered: 



says that a person f of education never puts in f 



hums and haws ; he goes f on with his t sentence without 

 senseless interjections. 



N.B. Every f means a dead pause. 4 



While thus privately retorting on his censor, he 

 took a singular means for curing his own defect. He 

 made a plan of the large window in the rector's room, 

 and wrote the words of the lesson in the spaces of the 

 frame-work. He conned his task in that setting, and, 



1 The boys' nickname for the Rector, Archdeacon Williams. Max- 

 well's first interview with him was as follows -.Rector : " What part of 

 Galloway do you come from ?" J. C. M.: " From the Vale of Urr, 

 Ye spell it o, err, err, or oo, err, err." 



2 Ditto for Mr. Carmichael. 



3 Mr John Cay, Sheriff of Linlithgow. See above, p. 7. 



4 These pauses in the Rector's case were often filled, in less 

 guarded moments, with What you call," " Yes, yes," which he had a 

 trick of interposing. 



