52 SIK WILLIAM KAMSAY 



roll his cigarette, a life-long practice, and retail or listen to the 

 latest story or the last piece of University gossip. He had a keen 

 sense of humour and delighted especially in the oddities of 

 ' Chemical ' or ' Comical ' John, the bottle washer of the estab- 

 lishment. John was a great character, a strange mixture of 

 shrewdness and simplicity. It was noticed that he absented 

 himself for a few minutes at exactly the same time every morning, 

 and on being followed one day it was found that he went to set 

 his watch by the great clock in the quadrangle. As he was not 

 responsible for the time-keeping, he was questioned as to why he 

 was so particular to have the exact time. He confessed then that 

 he stopped his watch every night and set it going again in the 

 morning. ' You see/ he added, ' it will last just twice as long 

 that way.' Ramsay had a keen appreciation of such humours. 



He frequently spent his week ends with an aunt at Kilcreggan 

 on the Clyde, and if I remember aright sometimes travelled up 

 and down daily. He had been employed to assist in trans- 

 lating Wurtz's Dictionary of Chemistry for a firm of Glasgow 

 publishers, who proposed to bring out an English edition, a 

 project which was afterwards abandoned, although a very large 

 part of the translation was actually completed. 



He always carried about with him, on his journeys, writing 

 material and some sheets of the French text. He wrote with 

 ease in the train or on board the steamer, and as he was paid so 

 much per sheet he would sometimes remark to me as he entered 

 the laboratory that he had earned so much on the way up to 

 town. He translated with great rapidity, and possessed then, as 

 he did all through life, the power of expressing himself easily and 

 correctly. His letters written at this time, of which I have 

 preserved a few, are excellent gossipy, vivacious, and quite 

 unconventional in style. 1 His handwriting differed little from 

 that of later years, except that it was not quite so regular as it 

 became subsequently. 



1 One of these letters will be found on a later page. 



