Father Anthony Bogadek pulled a thick white glove on his right hand, and picked up a t-shaped yellow stick in his left. 'This one sometimes bites,' he announced.
'But don't worry, you're quite safe,' he added unconvincingly, sliding open the door of a large cage and dragging out its writhing occupant - a two-metre-long, brownish-grey Common Rat Snake, which snapped its jaws and quickly wrapped its end around Father Bogadek's arm.
We are in a basement room at St Louis School in Sai Ying Pun, surrounded by six caged snakes, a handful of frogs and a turtle.
'This room is restricted to persons of unsound mind,' says a sign near the door, written by Father Bogadek, 66, an Italian citizen, born to Yugoslav parents in what is now Croatia. He made Hong Kong, and St Louis School in particular, his home for the best part of the past 50 years, interspersed with periods of study abroad. 'Enter at your own risk. You are lucky to get out alive!' Now retired from his job as biology teacher, Father Bogadek still lives in a flat in the school, helping out with biology lessons, and tending his reptiles.
A member of the Catholic order the Salesians of Don Bosco, Father Bogadek is perhaps Hong Kong's greatest living herpetologist - someone who studies reptiles and amphibians - although being intensely modest he would be the last to admit it.
The sign on the wall, meant in jest, is perhaps unnecessary. None of the creatures is venomous unlike a few years ago, Father Bogadek said, when the collection was 60 snakes-strong, boasting kraits, cobras and Bamboo Snakes.
Then the school had a snake club, whose seven members helped Father Bogadek care for the reptiles. Since the most interested students graduated, the collection has dwindled.
