Reading over the foregoing paragraph, which the reader may see was written currente calamo--at a gallop, as it were, and without a check, as the foxhunter says--we find that we have used the often-quoted Latin phrase terra firma; words which rarely fail to make us smile in their connection with an anecdote current in St. Andrews in our early college days. It was to this effect: The driver of a two-horse coach that ran at that time between St. Andrews and Newport was a George Braid, a respectable old man, familiarly known to everybody, and notably to the University students, as "Geordie," a liberty with his Christian name which Mr. Braid in nowise resented, for he was intelligent and shrewd, and knew that he was thus spoken of and addressed out of goodwill and kindly regard rather than otherwise. Frequently patronised on his route by learned professors and lively students, Geordie had picked up many big words and learned phrases, which he was fond of using in his family, and, as the Catechism says, amongst his "inferiors and equals." In connection with frequent storm and shipwreck on the wild east coast, it was the most natural thing in the world that Geordie should often have heard from the lips of some of his learned "fare" the words terra firma, with which he associated a general idea of protection, comfort, and safety. One terrible night of snow and storm, having driven a large coachful from Newport to the city, Geordie, when he had duly seen to his cattle, and paid a short visit to the bar of the "Cross Keys" hostelry, wended his way by the West Port to his home, which lay beyond the old city walls. His wife, a brisk and eident bit body, had a roaring fire and a cheery welcome for her goodman on his entrance, while his children gathered round him to help him off with caps, coats, leggings, and all the other belongings of the outer man of a driver in the good old coaching days. Reduced at last to something like his natural dimensions, Geordie, having sufficiently rubbed his purple hands before the fire, looked benignantly around and exclaimed, "Ah! Meg, my woman, you and the bairns hae muckle cause to be thankful to your Maker that ye hae terra firma abune your heads this night! Its just awfu' out yonder by the Guard Brig and Strathtyrum." We have met with not a few in our day with a strange craze for using words and phrases of which they evidently knew as little of the real meaning and proper application as honest Geordie Braid with his terra firma.