CHAPTER IX.
A NASTY CROPPER.
But there were pitfalls ahead.

As he moved to the botany table a grey-bearded examiner waved his hand in the direction of the row of microscopes as an intimation that the student was to look through them and pronounce upon what he saw.

Tom seemed to compress his whole soul into his one eye as he glared hopelessly through the tube at what appeared to him to resemble nothing so much as a sheet of ice with the marks of skates upon it.
"Come along, come along!" the examiner growled impatiently.

Courtesy is conspicuous by its absence in most of the Edinburgh examinations.
"You must pass on to the next one, unless you can offer an opinion." This venerable teacher of botany, though naturally a kind-hearted man, was well known as one of the most malignant species of examiners, one of the school which considers such an ordeal in the light of a trial of strength between their pupils and themselves.

In his eyes the candidate was endeavouring to pass, and his duty was to endeavour to prevent him, a result which, in a large proportion of cases, he successfully accomplished.
"Hurry on, hurry on!" he reiterated fussily.
"It's a section of a leaf," said the student.
"It's nothing of the sort," the examiner shouted exultantly.
"You've made a bad mistake, sir; a very bad one, indeed.