VICTORIA TO PADDINGTON
By HENRY WATSON
IWENT down last term to John's prep. school ; he had just been given his colours and I was to see him display them before a match. I arrived in time for luncheon and found myself seated at the high table, John on one side of me and Thompson ma., a special friend to whom I was formally introduced, on the other. Whatever else they are taught, their manners to visitors are charming ; although, to judge from John's behaviour in the holidays, he must be at the bottom of the class in this subject.
Thompson ma. is evidently in full training as a complete conversationalist—he told me confidentially that he was going into the diplomatic service—and he made his own openings for the latest piece of information which he had acquired and which he was anxious to impart. " Had I come down from Victoria ? " " What a nuisance it was that there was no tube from Paddington to the Southern Railway." (He had learnt from John that I lived at Oxford.) " Of course that was an obvious route, but it was quite out of the question, for it would have to go under the Park." I agreed that the need was obvious, and innocently asked " Why ? " That was the cue for which he had been working. " Well, you see," he answered, not, I must say, with any air of superiority ; his manners were much too good for that, but I could feel he was pleased ; " you see, it's like this. All the ground under the Park is hopelessly water- logged ; there are no end of springs and streams, the Tyburn, the Westbourne, and then there's the Serpentine. All this makes a tube quite impossible, or it would have been done long ago." " Of course," I asserted, " quite impossible." One could only meet courtesy with courtesy ; this was no moment for argument. Besides, it was a question I had never considered, and I had no answer to give.
But, thinking it over, I confess I was not convinced. After all, were there not half a dozen or so tunnels under the Thames ? I wished I had thought of that at luncheon.
A few days later, however, at the dub I fell into the clutches of old Colonel Hobnob, who knows or thinks he knows all there is to know about London. Here was a question to stump him ; it almost sounded like a riddle. " Why is there no tube from Victoria to Paddington ? " Not a bit of it ; he knew the answer, and this is the story he told me. My dear fellow, you've never heard that ! The reason really began in the days of the old Queen, God bless her ! Somewhere in the 'fifties or 'sixties. I had it from my father who was then something or other about the Court. At that time the Parks were full of rabbits ; in fact where that disgraceful figure of Epstein's now is, there was a regular rabbit warren, and the officers on duty at the Magazine used to go out and pot them with their rifles in the evening. It so happened that one day, when the Queen was walking through Kensington Gardens with her uncle, the old Duke of Cambridge, who was then in charge of the Parks as Ranger, she put her foot into a rabbit hole and came down—flat. It was not a dignified position, especially with all the Lords and Ladies-in-Waiting really waiting. She was re-erected as speedily as possible ; but you can imagine her temper, and by the time she had recovered her breath her mind was made up. ' Uncle George,' she said with her wonted dignity, ' it is Our Pleasure that there shall be no more rabbits in Our Parks ; you will have them all destroyed tomorrow. I will have no creatures whatever henceforth burrowing under Our Royal Land.'
" Orders were at once given for all the rabbit-catchers and rat-catchers in London to parade that midnight on the Serpentine Bridge with traps, nets, spades, ferrets and dogs complete. And, believe me, within twenty-four hours not a rabbit was left alive in any of the Parks. A meeting of the Privy Council was summoned the same morning, and, with Her Majesty presiding, an Order was set out and sealed with the Great Seal that all burrowing on or under our Royal Parks is according to Our Pleasure henceforth and for ever forbidden. You will find the Order in the Record Office or the Rolls Office—I forget which ; but there is also a reference to it in the Regulations on the notice-boards at all the gates of the Parks. That is the reason why there is no tube or burrow from Victoria to Paddington. It's a pity, for it would certainly be a convenience. But there it is, and it can't be helped."
I extricated myself as soon as Hobnob paused for breath, and walked home through Hyde Park. In passing, more out of curiosity than anything else, I stopped and looked at a notice board. There was nothing in the Regulations forbidding " burrowing." A horrid thought passed through my mind. Was Hobnob, after all, presuming on inY credulity ? Or was he sinking from anecdotage into dotage ? I have not seen him since, but I shall not retail his story to Thompson ma. when I next go to the school ; by that time he will probably have departed to Eton, the home of budding diplomats.
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