Burges was accustomed to keep with him in his office a favourite terrier, which made itself occasionally disagreeable to visitors who called. When it was pointed out that the effect of this might be to keep away possible clients, Burges only grumbled out, "A good thing too! I have far too many as it is." Once a sporting friend came in to see him, bringing his own terrier, which he boasted was the best ratter in the country. Burges would not hear of this, and the matter was at once put to the test. The office-boy was sent out to some neighbouring purlieu for a sack of rats: a rat-pit was extemporised out of drawing-boards, architectural folios, and other paraphernalia of the office; and an elderly and distinguished client who chanced to call, intent on business, found the rat-hunt in full cry, and the eminent architect and his friend in their shirt-sleeves, hallooing on their respective champions to the slaughter. [Sidenote: Restorations in Bute] Bute contributed handsomely to the restoration funds of such historic edifices as St. John's Church at Cardiff and others on his Glamorgan estate; and he re-roofed and put in complete repair the small twelfth-century church of Cogan, near Cardiff, which {219} had fallen into decay. It may be of interest, in this connection, to quote a letter which he addressed to his brother-in-law and fellow-Catholic, Lord Merries, who had consulted him as to the propriety of his subscribing to the restoration fund of Selby Abbey, which had been in great part destroyed by fire: The question is one of some delicacy; but its solution is facilitated by the circular which you have sent me, which specifies various objects for which subscriptions are invited. I can only advise you in accordance with my own practice in such matters. You may reasonably decline to provide such adjuncts or accessories to Anglican worship as pulpits and litany-desks, service-books and altar-cloths, lecterns and candlesticks. But to give a donation towards the actual rebuilding of a most venerable monument of Christian piety (which your ancestors probably helped originally to erect) is a thing which, I conceive, you may very properly do--and all the more so in view of your official connection with the county.[3]