ast. Upon turning the matter over in
his mind, however, Miller had come to the conclusion that
Palestine, and Egypt, and Greece could not run away, but that,
unless he was there to keep matters going, the St. Ambrose boat
would lose the best chance it was ever likely to have of getting
to the head of the river. So he had patriotically resolved to
reside till June, read divinity, and coach the racing crew; and
had written to Diogenes to call together the whole boating
interest of the College, that they might set to work at once in
good earnest. Tom, and the three or four other freshmen present,
were duly presented to Miller as they came in, who looked them
over as the colonel of a crack regiment might look over horses at
Horncastle-fair, with a single eye to their bone and muscle, and
how much work might be got out of them. They then gathered
towards the lower end of the long table, and surveyed the
celebrities at the upper end with much respect. Miller, the
coxswain, sat on the host's right hand,--a slight, resolute,
fiery little man, with curly black hair. He was peculiarly
qualified by nature for the task which he had set himself; and it
takes no mean qualities to keep a boat's crew well together and
in order. Perhaps he erred a little on the side of
over-strictness and severity; and he certainly would have been
more popular had his manners been a thought more courteous; but
the men who rebelled most against his tyranny grumblingly
confessed that he was a first-rate coxswain.

A very different man was the captain of the boat, who sat
opposite to Miller; altogether, a noble specimen of a very noble
type of our countrymen. Tall and strong of body; courageous and
even-tempered; tolerant of all men; sparing of speech, but ready
in action; a thoroughly well balanced, modest, quiet Englishman;
one of those who do a good stroke of the work of the country
without getting much credit for it, or even becoming aware of the
fact; for the last thing such men understand is how to blow their
own trumpets. He was perhaps too easy for the captain of St.
Ambrose boat-club; at any rate, Miller was always telling him so.
But, if he was not strict enough with others, he never spared
himself, and was as good as three men in the boat at a pinch.

But if I venture on more introductions, my readers will get
bewildered; so I must close the list, much as I should like to
make them known to "fortis Gyas fortisque Cloanthus," who sat
round t