een half so
interesting to him as an importation of turtle. However, to do him
justice, he put on his spectacles, and looked as scientific as anybody.
After due examination of the specimen of the genus Rana which the bursar
still held in captivity, and pronouncing a unanimous opinion, that,
come from where he would, he was a _bona fide_ frog, with nothing
supernatural about him, the conclave proceeded round the quadrangle,
calculating the numbers, and conjecturing the probable origin of these
strange visitors. Equally curious, if not equally scientific, were the
undergraduates who followed them; for, having strictly kept our own
secret, my friend and myself were the only parties who could solve the
mystery; and though many suspected that the frogs were unwilling
emigrants, none knew to whom they were indebted for their introduction
to college. The collected wisdom of the dons soon decided that a shower
of full-grown frogs was a novelty even in the extraordinary occurrences
of newspapers; and as not even a single individual croaker was to be
discovered outside the walls of ----, it became evident that the whole
affair was, as the dean described it, "another of those outrages upon
academic discipline, which were as senseless as they were disgraceful."

I daresay the dean's anathema was "as sensible as it was sincere;" but
it did not prevent our thoroughly enjoying the success of the
"_outrage_" at the time; nor does it, unfortunately, suffice at this
present moment to check something like an inward chuckle, when I think
of the trouble which it cost the various retainers of the college to
clear it effectually of its strange visitors. Hopkins, the old butler,
who was of rather an imaginative temperament, and had a marvellous tale
to tell any one who would listen, of a departed bursar, who, having
caught his death of cold by superintending the laying down of three
pipes of port, might ever afterwards be heard, upon such interesting
occasions, walking about the damp cellars after nightfall in
pattens,--Hopkins, the oracle of the college "tap," maintained that the
frogs were something "off the common;" and strengthened his opinion by
reference to a specimen which he had selected--a lank, black, skinny
individual, which really looked ugly enough to have come from anywhere.
Scouts, wives, and children (they always make a point of having large
families, in order to eat up the spare commons), all were busy, through
that eventful d