Lord Abingdon was another Eton boy noted for his mimicry of Keate; indeed, dressed up in a cocked hat and gown made expressly for him, his disguise was so perfect that he actually went round one night and called “Absence” at the different dames’ houses without being detected. Years later, after a dinner-party at his home in Oxfordshire, his Lordship would dress up as Keate, and, birch in hand, enact a scene in the “library” for the edification of visitors. On one of these occasions he persuaded one of them to “go down” on a block, made in exact imitation of that at Eton, which stood in the room, whilst two others “held him down,” and the story goes that the noble host pitched into his guest with such hearty goodwill that, when allowed to get up, the latter was so sore in more ways than one that he called for his carriage and drove off in a great rage. Though boys mimicked and laughed at Keate behind his back, very few had the courage to stand up to him face to face. One of the few, however, who did so was Charles Fox Townshend, the founder of “Pop,” who, “staying out” on account of indisposition, refused to write out and translate the lessons of the day, in consequence of which he was in due course summoned to the awful presence of the redoubtable Headmaster. In the well-known tones of thunder which made four generations of Etonians tremble, Keate demanded the meaning of such conduct. “Don’t speak so loud, Dr. Keate,” replied Townshend, “or you will make my head ache. If I had felt fit to write out and translate the lesson I should have gone into school, but I did not feel well enough, so I stayed out.” The famous Headmaster, it is said, was so dumbfoundered by the readiness of the delinquent’s reply that he let him go without any punishment. On the whole, Keate does not seem to have been an ill-natured man, for, in spite of his occasional fits of ferocity, he was held in considerable esteem by a large number of the boys. They bore him no ill-will for the floggings he had caused them to undergo, and, when he left Eton in 1834, presented him with a gift testifying their appreciation of his merits. This consisted of a silver reproduction of the Warwick Vase, on the pedestal of which was inscribed-- PRESENTED BY THE EXISTING MEMBERS OF ETON SCHOOL TO THE REVD. JOHN KEATE, D.D. ON HIS RETIREMENT FROM THE HEADMASTERSHIP JULY 30, 1834, AS A TESTIMONY OF THE HIGH SENSE THEY ENTERTAIN OF HIS EXQUISITE TASTE AND ACCURATE SCHOLARSHIP SO LONG AND SO SUCCESSFULLY DEVOTED TO THEIR IMPROVEMENT AND OF THE FIRM YET PARENTAL EXERCISE OF HIS AUTHORITY WHICH HAS CONCILIATED THE AFFECTION WHILE IT HAS COMMANDED THE RESPECT OF HIS SCHOLARS. [SN: AN AMUSING DINNER]