82 THE TRINITY FOOT BEAGLES 



Our Committee were — George Longman, Lord El^rington, 

 "Nutty" Leake, George Macan, Mowbray Howard, Peter Clowes, 

 Eorey McLeod, and myself. 



Not only is the Clare story one of our best yarns, but it also 

 brings us into contact with one of the most venerable figures in 

 Cambridge, that of Dr. Atkinson, who was elected Master of 

 Clare in 1856 and who is Master still, the jubilee of his Mastership 

 having been observed with great state and ancientry some five years 

 ago. Think of it! His Mastership extends over more than the 

 whole of our history, for it goes back beyond the days of the Foot 

 Drag to the legendary pack of whose existence nothing remains but 

 the vaguest hearsay. This being so, the "outrage," now ancient 

 history, and the time ripe for telling tales out of school, I craved the 

 Master's version of the event, however uncomplimentary, approaching 

 him of course indirectly through the Tutor, Mr. Wardale, to whom I 

 sent an abbreviated version of the tale, receiving the following kind 

 but disappointing reply : — 



Letter 



Clare College, Feb. 24, 1912. 



Dear Sir— I saw our Master to-day and asked him about your 

 story, but he had no recollection of it at all. 



I am bound to say that it strikes me as a curious one. If the 

 hare got into the Court, it would naturally go right through by the 

 front gate, and if not the hounds would surely have killed it long 

 before the Master ^ could come out and interfere. Besides, it is 

 impossible, I think, for it to have got up on to the bridge on the 

 College side of the river, and it must have plunged in and then 

 turned back. Is it not more probable that it only swam the ditch 

 into the garden on the other side, and was being chased about there 

 when the Master appeared ? 



I throw out this suggestion, as on the face of it the story 



1 Of the College. It is confusing to have two dramatis pcrsonae filling such diverse 

 functions in a scene and yet bearing the same title. 



