130 THE TRINITY FOOT BEAGLES 



One thing leads to another, and here we see — 



(1) What tricks memory can play. 



(2) " How small the world is." 



(3) That P. Burges was a rowing man.^ 



In those days there was no such gulf between boaters and beaglers 

 as now exists — more's the pity ! 



Two other great hoaxes may be alluded to, though they have no 

 direct connection with T.F.B. In the seventies the Shah of Persia 

 visited England. Some undergraduates somehow got hold of a pink 

 (delivery) telegraph form, and made out a telegram to the Mayor 

 saying that the Shah was coming down, and in an unguarded 

 moment, when the Mayor's office was empty, left it on the table. 

 Pte-enter the Mayor. Telegram found. Immediate exit to confer 

 with Vice -Chancellor. All available chickens and crime -hruUes 

 ordered to Eitzwilliam Museum for an impromptu luncheon. The 

 Colonel of the C.U.E.V., now Master of Corpus, calls out guard of 

 honour of " bug-shooters." Dr. Campion, Eector of St. Botolph's, 

 invites miscellaneous friends to view the procession from his church- 

 yard. All to the station, where the stationmaster says he has heard 

 nothing of the special. University authorities chide stationmaster 

 for inattention to business, calling him a fool or words to that effect. 

 A crestfallen throng returns down the Hills Road, en route for the 

 centre of the town. 



This I tell you as the late Canon Slater of St. Giles' told it me. 

 He knew all the actors in the farce, and said that it would be by 

 him but moderately indiscreet to mention names. One of them was 

 a man who afterwards took an active interest in theatrical matters, 

 and was himself Mayor of Cambridge. 



The other case happened early in the present century, when a 

 number of undergraduates went up to town, telephoned to the Mayor, 

 visited Mr. Clarkson, the wig-maker, and came down as a non-existent 

 uncle of the Sultan of Zanzibar and liis suite, and were received with 

 red carpet and other royal honours by the Mayor of that date. The 



' As was also Curtis, wlio went down to tlie Lent Races on his son's bicycle and 

 saw I. Trinity B.C. make a bump, rather than go with his son to Cottenham ! 



