Dr. Liddon tells of being invited to Frank's rooms, to breakfast with
him. "The marmots, which had hibernated in the cellar below, had just,
as he expressed it, 'thawed.' There was great excitement; the creatures
ran about the table, as entitled to the honors of the day; though there
were other beasts and reptiles in the room too, which in later life
would have made breakfasting difficult. Speaking of reptiles, one very
early incident in my Oxford life was joining in a hunt of Frank's adder.
It had escaped into Mr. Benson's rooms, and was pursued into the bedroom
by a group of undergraduates, who had, however, different objects in
view. Frank certainly had the well-being of the adder chiefly at heart,
the rest of us, I fear, were governed by the lower motive of escaping
being bitten anyhow--if consistently with the adder's safely, well--if
not, still of escaping. Eventually, the adder was caught, I believe,
without great damage.
"One day I met Frank just outside Tom Gate. His trousers pockets were
swollen out to an enormous size; they were full of slow-worms in damp
moss. Frank explained to me that this combination of warmth and moisture
was good for the slow-worms, and that they enjoyed it. They certainly
were very lively, poking their heads out incessantly, while he repressed
them with the palms of his hands....
"He was certainly one of the most popular men in Christ Church; when he
was in the schools, to be examined _viva voce_, almost the whole
undergraduate world of Christ Church was there.... He always struck me,
in respect of the most serious matters, as combining strength and
simplicity very remarkably; it was impossible to talk to him and not to
be sure that God, life, death, and judgment were to him solid and
constantly present realities."
Another college friend says: "One evening when I was devoting an hour to
coaching him up for his 'little go,' I took care to tuck up my legs, in
Turkish fashion, on the sofa, for fear of a casual bite from the jackal
which was wandering about the room. After a time I heard the animal
munching up something under the sofa, and was relieved that he should
have found something to occupy him. When our work was finished, I told
Buckland that the jackal had found something to eat under the sofa. 'My
poor guinea-pigs!' he exclaimed; and, sure enough, four or five of them
had fallen victims."
Tiglath Pileser, the bear, had to be sent away from Christ Church. The
dean said, "I hear you keep a bear in college; well, either you or your
bear must go." So Tig was sent to Islip, seven miles from Oxford, a
living held by Dean Buckland, who had now become Dean of Westminster.
The bear did so much mischief at Islip, in grocer's shops and houses,
that he was sent to the zoölogical gardens, where he died in cutting his
teeth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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