On one occasion--I tell the story as he himself
rehearsed it to Samuel Rogers, almost at the end of his life, after
his attack of apoplexy, and just before leaving England for Italy in
the hopeless quest of health--he had long desired to get above a
schoolfellow in his class, who defied all his efforts, till Scott
noticed that whenever a question was asked of his rival, the lad's
fingers grasped a particular button on his waistcoat, while his mind
went in search of the answer. Scott accordingly anticipated that if he
could remove this button, the boy would be thrown out, and so it
proved. The button was cut off, and the next time the lad was
questioned, his fingers being unable to find the button, and his eyes
going in perplexed search after his fingers, he stood confounded, and
Scott mastered by strategy the place which he could not gain by mere
industry. "Often in after-life," said Scott, in narrating the
manoeuvre to Rogers, "has the sight of him smote me as I passed by
him; and often have I resolved to make him some reparation, but it
ended in good resolutions.
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