e by no means the sort of crew you could just run
into hand over hand. So Miller and Diogenes preached, and so the
Ambrosians found out to their cost.

They had the pace of the other boat, and gained as usual a boat's
length before the Gut; but, first those two fatal corners were
passed, and then other well-remembered spots where former bumps
had been made, and still Miller made no sign; on the contrary, he
looked gloomy and savage. The St. Ambrosian shouts from the shore
too changed from the usual exultant peals into something like a
quaver of consternation, while the air was rent with the name and
laudations of "little Oriel."

Long before the Cherwell Drysdale was completely baked (he had
played truant the day before and dined at the Weirs, were he had
imbibed much dubious hock), but he from old habit managed to keep
time. Tom and the other young oars got flurried, and quickened;
the boat dragged, there was no life left in her, and, though they
managed just to hold their first advantage, could not put her a
foot nearer the stern of the Oriel boat, which glided past the
winning-post a clear boat's length ahead of her pursuer, and with
a crew much less depressed.

Such races must tell on strokes; and even Jervis, who had pulled
magnificently throughout, was very much done at the close, and
leant over his oar with a swimming in his head, and an approach
to faintness, and was scarcely able to see for a minute or so.
Miller's indignation knew no bounds, but he bottled it up till he
had manoeuvered the crew into their dressing-room by themselves,
Jervis having stopped below. Then he did not spare them. "They
would kill their captain, whose little finger was worth the whole
of them; they were disgracing the college; three or four of them
had neither heart, head nor pluck." They all felt that this was
unjust, for after all had they not brought the boat up to the
second place? Poor Diogenes sat in a corner and groaned; he
forgot to prefix "old fellow" to the few observations he made.
Blake had great difficulty in adjusting his necktie before the
glass; he merely remarked in a pause of the objurgation, "In
faith, coxswain, these be very bitter words." Tom and most of the
others were too much out of heart to resist; but at last Drysdale
fired up--

"You've no right to be so savage that I can see," he said,
suddenly stopping the low whistle in which he was indulging, as
he sat on the corner of the table; "you seem to thin