The dean, in cap
and surplice, on his way from chapel, was eagerly listening to the
account which one of the scouts was giving him of the first discovery of
the intruders.

"Me and my missis, sir," quoth John, "was a-coming into college when it
was hardly to say daylight, when she, as I reckon, sets foot upon one of
'em, and was like to have been back'ards with a set of breakfast chiney
as she was a-bringing in for one of the fresh gentlemen. She scritches
out in course, and I looks down, and then I sees two or three a' 'oppin
about; but I didn't take much notice till I gets to the thoroughfare,
when there was a whole row on 'em a-trying to climb up the bottom step;
and then I calls Solomon the porter, and"----

Here I left my window, and, making a hasty toilet, joined a group of
under-graduates, who were now collecting round the dean and bursar. I
cast my eyes round the quadrangle, and was delighted with the success of
our labours. There had been a heavy shower in the night, and the frogs
were as lively as they could be on so ungenial a location as a gravelled
court. In every corner was a goodly cluster, who were making ladders of
each other's backs, as if determined to scale the college walls. Some,
of more retiring disposition, were endeavouring to force themselves into
crevices, and hiding their heads behind projections to escape the gaze
of academic eyes; while a few active spirits seemed to be hopping a
sweepstakes right for the common-room door. Just as I made my
appearance, the principal came out of the door of his lodgings, with
another of the fellows, having evidently been summoned to assist at the
consultation. Good old soul! his study of zoology had been chiefly
confined to the class edibles, and a shower of frogs, authenticated upon
the oaths of the whole Convocation, would not have been 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 any body.
After due examination of the specimen of the genus _Zana_ which the
bursar still held in captivity, and pronouncing an 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
under-graduates who followed them; for, having strictly kept