As this was evidently meant for a joke, Tom had the tact to laugh, and a very gruesome and awe-inspiring laugh it was too.
Then the candidate was badgered about the pterodactyl, and concerning the difference in anatomy between a bat and a bird, and about the lamprey, and the cartilaginous fishes, and the amphioxus.

All these questions he answered more or less to the satisfaction of the examiners--generally less.

When at last the little bell tinkled which was the sign for candidates to move on to other tables, the taller man leaned over a list in front of him and marked down upon it the following hieroglyphic:-- "S.

B .-- ." This Tom's sharp eye at once detected, and he departed well pleased, for he knew that the "S.

B." meant _satis bene_, and as to the minus sign after it, it mattered little to him whether he had done rather more than well or rather less.