"Still, I think I am pretty safe. I am glad they have come now, for
next Wednesday is the international football match. Garraway and I are
the two Scotch half-backs. You must all come down and see it."

"I'll tell you what, Dimsdale," said Garraway, reappearing in the
doorway, "if we don't hurry up we shall see nothing of the election.
It is close on twelve."

"I am all ready," cried Dr. Dimsdale, jumping to his feet and buttoning
his coat.

"Let us be off, then," said his son; and picking up hats and sticks they
clattered off down the lodging-house stairs.

A rectorial election is a peculiarly Scotch institution, and, however it
may strike the impartial observer, it is regarded by the students
themselves as a rite of extreme solemnity and importance from which
grave issues may depend. To hear the speeches and addresses of rival
orators one would suppose that the integrity of the constitution and the
very existence of the empire hung upon the return of their special
nominee. Two candidates are chosen from the most eminent of either
party and a day is fixed for the polling. Every undergraduate has a
vote, but the professors have no voice in the matter. As the duties are
nominal and the position honourable, there is never any lack of
distinguished aspirants for a vacancy. Occasionally some well-known
literary or scientific man is invited to become a candidate, but as a
rule the election is fought upon strictly political lines, with all the
old-fashioned accompaniments of a Parliamentary contest.