ssible issues, without a hint of volunteering himself. But
presently Jervis, who did not understand finessing, broke in, and
asked Hardy, point blank, to pull in the next race; and when he
pleaded want of training, overruled him at once by saying that
there was no better training than sculling. So in half an hour
all was settled. Hardy was to pull five in the next race,
Diogenes was to take Blake's place, at No. 7, and Blake to take
Drysdale's oar at No. 2. The whole crew were to go for a long
training walk the next day, Sunday, in the afternoon; to go down
to Abingdon on Monday, just to get into swing in their new
places, and then on Tuesday to abide the fate of war. They had
half an hour's pleasant talk over Hardy's tea, and then
separated.

"I always told you he was our man," said the Captain to Miller,
as the walked together to the gates; "we want strength, and he is
as strong as a horse. You must have seen him sculling yourself.
There isn't his match on the river to my mind."

"Yes, I think he'll do," replied Miller; "at any rate he can't be
worse than Drysdale."

As for Tom and Hardy, it may safely be said that no two men in
Oxford went to bed in better spirits that Saturday night than
they two.

And now to explain how it came about that Hardy was wanted.
Fortune had smiled upon the St. Ambrosians in the two races which
succeeded the one in which they had bumped Exeter. They had risen
two more places without any very great trouble. Of course, the
constituencies on the bank magnified their powers and doings.
There never was such a crew, they were quite safe to be head of
the river, nothing could live against their pace. So the young
oars in the boat swallowed all they heard, thought themselves the
finest fellows going, took less and less pains to keep up their
condition, and when they got out of earshot of Jervis and
Diogenes, were ready to bet two to one that they would bump Oriel
the next night, and keep easily head of the river for the rest of
the races.

Saturday night came, and brought with it a most useful though
unpalatable lesson to the St. Ambrosians. The Oriel boat was
manned chiefly by old oars, seasoned in many a race, and not
liable to panic when hard pressed. They had a fair, though not a
first-rate stroke, and a good coxswain; experts remarked that
they were rather too heavy for their boat, and that she dipped a
little when they put on anything like a severe spurt; but on the
whole they wer