These Gregories, though they did not care for popularity, or possibly because they did not care for popularity, and never went out of their way to attain it, usually ended by being on the winning side—that is to say, public opinion often changed from being against them to being with them. They had such a gift of laughing at the right time, of passing over the bitterness of their adversaries, and even exposing the partisanship of their allies. Take the story which Sir Archibald Alison gives us in his autobiography, of how a mathematical examination was once rearranged for his benefit in the University of Edinburgh. It was in the time of Professor Leslie, in the spring of 1808, that this examination in the class of mathematics took place. Archibald Alison had three very able competitors. These were Borthwick of Crookston, J. M’Pherson Macleod, and Mr Edward Irving. Young Alison, nervous and excitable in face of the examination paper, became suddenly destitute of ideas, and could only solve two of the six problems which were set. It was all the more distressing, because he knew that, being by his mother a member of the great mathematical family of Gregories, he was expected to come out first. The wretched day came to an end at last, and the boy went home in the evening literally shedding tears of vexation. Immediately he was freed from the anxiety of the lecture-room, he solved the problems rapidly and clearly, in a way that annoyed and pleased him almost equally. The professor, it seems, when he read the papers, could not give the first prize to Alison on the strength of his answers. He therefore decided that the work of that day should not hold, and appointed a second date for the trial. The next time the result was all that he and Archibald Alison could have desired! This little episode entertained Sir Archibald immensely, and is a curious indication of the lengths to which their friends were prepared to go for them, but while in many families, influence, however acceptable it may be to themselves, is anything but a good to the community, the influence exerted for the Gregories was always rewarded by the sensible, thorough, and often brilliant way in which they carried on their work.