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 any where. 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 day, in a novel occupation, and by dinnertime not a frog was to
be seen; but long, long afterwards, on a moist evening, fugitives from
the general prescription might be seen making their silent way across
the quadrangle, and croakings were heard at night-time, which might (as
Homer relates of _his_ frogs) have disturbed Minerva, only that the
goddess of wisdom, in chambers collegiate, sleeps usually pretty sound.

The "business of the stays," however, bid fair to supersede the business
of the frogs, in the dean's record of my supposed crimes; and as I fully
intended to clear myself, even to his satisfaction, of any suspic