At the beginning of the following term Hebby once more turned up in Oxford, being then almost a full-grown dog. He again lived in lodgings, this time in Turl Street. By this time he had acquired luxurious habits, and was particularly fond of taking his naps in any bed that might be handy. Having on four separate occasions covered himself with mud and ensconced himself in the bed of the landlady, he was not as popular as a dog of his parts ought to have been. But the culminating point was reached when Hebby, having stolen a cold pheasant and the remains of a leg of mutton, took the bones to the bed of his master, into which he tucked himself. After this he was passed onto E., a Magdalen man, and was called The Pre.
I cannot follow his wanderings after this point in any detail. I know he has gone the round of the Colleges twice. He has been a boating dog, a cricketing dog, an athletic dog, and a footballing dog. He has been a canine member of Vincent's Club; he has waited outside the Union unmoved while a debate, on which the fate of the Ministry hung, was in progress. He has been smuggled into College, he has disgraced himself, and caused a change of carpets in nearly every lodging in Oxford. He has lived near New College under the name of Spoo, has been entered at Christ Church as Fleacatcher (a delicate compliment to distinguished oarsman), and has frequented the precincts of the Radcliffe Infirmary, and been joyfully hailed as Pego by budding doctors. I believe he is still a resident member of the University, but his exact place of residence is more than I can tell. His original owner endeavoured to trace him not long ago. He got as far as Lincoln College, and there lost the clue.
This, I am sure, is no solitary example. Hundreds of Oxford dogs are at this very time undergoing the same vicissitudes, through a similar Odyssey of wanderings. And probably, if the truth were known, there are Cambridge dogs in no better case.
OUR BOOKING-OFFICE.
"I like it muchly," quoth the Baron, finishing Baring Gould's Noëmi:—
"This scribe for publishers ne'er writes in vain;