Charles Reade At Oxford

When Charles Reade was at Oxford he was not always, from a proctor's point of view, a pattern for others to be gutded by. One night he and a companion, being without cap and gown, were chased by the "buil dogs." Being fleet of foot, they soon reached their respective colleges. His chum was able to square the porter at Queen's, and passed in, but there was no such luck for Reade when he arrived at Magdalen. Being a young man of resources, he was not to be easily caught, and, looking about him in the moonlight, he spied a ladder. Planting this under his chamber window, he was soon in his own rooms. But the telltale ladder renïained behind, so he managed to drag it up after him. He always carried a capital sportsman's knife - which would saw as well as cut - and with it he began to convert the ladder into fuel. When his friend from Queen's called in the morning to see how it fared with Reade, he was told: "I shall be all right directly, old man, for I've been up all night burning the ladder, and I have just put the last bit of the blessed thing on the flre!"