« BOB " 149 



On the first occasion nothing happened until the labours of term 

 called Bob and his charges back to Cambridge. Then the hounds 

 had to be taken to the station in the twilight of a January morning. 

 They were late for the train, and did some sixteen miles at a hand 

 gallop. Then nose-bags were got for the horses — they were post- 

 horses from an inn — and hens began to emerge and share the feast. 

 These hens had apparently roosted under the van when standing in 

 the inn yard over night, and had stuck to their perches on the axle 

 trees all through the next morning's rush for the station. Then the 

 light improving they had waked up and come down quite uncon- 

 cernedly to breakfast. Afterwards there was a hunt, and several 

 unauthorised persons such as ostlers and railway porters had roast 

 fowl for dinner. 



In Mr. B.'s reign after a morning's home beagling Bob was found 

 a gun and taken out rabbit shooting. The Master's terrier was with 

 Bob, and being called across to his owner the dog misconstrued his 

 orders or made a mess of it somehow. There was a sound as of a 

 gun going off, and the dog fled howling. Bob naturally thought that 

 in the heat of the moment he had been shot at ; but, as a matter of 

 fact, a cartridge had been thrown at him, and the cap impinging on 

 an eye-tooth had exploded. Bob was very particular about the eye- 

 tooth, but of course nobody quite saw what had happened. The dog 

 took no real harm, as a cartridge exploding in the open does not 

 burst with the force of a shell. It was, I believe, quite a common 

 accident for the old pin-fire cartridges when dropped to fall on the 

 pin and go off, but for a central fire to do so is extraordinarily rare. 

 None the less the poor dog suffered considerably from shock, and 

 that he should have been gun-shy for some time afterwards was 

 hardly surprising. 



These are the two tales which " nobody couldn't ever believe." 



There is an apocryphal story afloat to the effect that two of Bob's 

 children were christened Foreman and Fretful, or some such names, 

 after his favourite hounds. It is quite true that they were all 

 christened at once, and that T.F.B. officials stood sponsor. Bob said 

 that he held the eldest himself as she was old enough to " take 

 notice " and be frightened, and from the accompanying pantomime I 



