e first occasion that that respectable
old University had ever given that particular degree to any one, I was
naturally not a little gratified. The day of the conferring of it will
ever live in my memory. My cousin, the Professor of Paleontology, half
of whose life was spent in the desert of Egypt digging for papyri in
old dust-heaps, was considered the most appropriate person to stand
sponsor for me--a would-be pioneer of a new civilization in the
sub-arctic.

The words with which the Public Orator introduced me to the
Vice-Chancellor, being in Latin, seem to me interesting as a relic
rather than as a statement of fact:

"Insignissime Vice-Cancellarie vosque egregii Procuratores: Adest
civis Britannicus, hujus academiae olim alumnus, nunc Novum Orbem
incolentibus quam nostratibus notus. Hic ille est qui quindecim abhinc
annos in litus Labradorium profectus est, ut solivagis in mari Boreali
piscatoribus ope medica succurreret; quo in munere obeundo Oceani
pericula, quae ibi formidosissima sunt, contempsit dum miseris et
maerentibus solatium ac lumen afferret. Nunc quantum homini licet, in
ipsius Christi vestigiis, si fas est dicere, insistere videtur, vir
vere Christianus. Jure igitur eum laudamus cujus laudibus non ipse
solum sed etiam Academia nostra ornatur.

"Praesenta ad vos Wilfredum Thomassum Grenfell, ut admittatur ad gradum
Doctoris in Medicina Honoris Causa."

As we, the only two Doctors Grenfell extant, marched solemnly back
down the aisle side by side, the antithesis of what doctorates called
for struck my sense of humour most forcibly. I had hired the gorgeous
robes of scarlet box cloth and carmine silk for the occasion, never
expecting to wear them again. But some years later, when yet another
honorary Doctorate, of Laws, was most generously conferred upon me by
a University of our American cousins, I felt it incumbent on me to
uphold if possible the British end of the ritual. A cable brought me
just in time the box-cloth surtout. Commencement ceremonies in the
United States are in June; and the latitude was that of Rome. For
years I had spent the hot months always in the sub-arctic. The
assembly hall was small and crowded to bursting--not even all the
graduating class could get in, much less all their friends. The
temperature was in three figures. The scarlet box cloth got hotter and
hotter as we paraded in and about the campus. My face outrivalled the
gown in colour. I have made many lobster men out