“Stroke side, catch the beginning sharper; the boat rolls down on the bow oars. Bow side, keep your hands up! That’s better! Steady now, all; don’t rush forward. Keep your swing long; you’re all rowing too short in the water!... Every man keep his eyes in the boat. Watch the man in front of you and follow his movements; make a machine of yourself!... You’re out of time again! Listen for the rattle of the locks. There ought to be but one sound, and I can hear at least five. Use your ears, men!... Stroke, lengthen out, lengthen out; you’re much too short!”

And Malcolm Kirk, standing in the bow of the little naphtha launch Terrible, took his megaphone from his mouth and motioned to the man in charge. The Terrible swung around in a short swirl of blue water and headed down-stream, waiting for the shell to make its long turn above. Across the sun-kissed wavelets came the sound of the coxswain’s voice:

“Easy all!... Three and Bow, paddle. Stroke and Six, back water!... Forward!... Are you ready?...[180] Row!” Then down the river came the boat, looking for all the world like an enormous water-bug, its eight long legs treading the bosom of the river in unison, or at least in unison so far as the ordinary observer would have been able to judge, but not at all satisfactory in that respect to the motionless figure on the launch. The eight backs bent together and the boat sped past the Terrible, which instantly puff-puffed impatiently and started in pursuit, taking up a position off Number Two.

“Stroke, you’re still too short,” began the coach all over again. “Keep it low and long!... Seven, you bend your arms too soon; swing back with them perfectly straight; remember, you can’t make them do your work; hard against the stretcher, now!... That’s a bit better.... Six, you start your slide too soon; I’ve spoken to you of that often enough. Get your whole body-weight well onto the stroke before you drive your slide away.... Sit up, Five! Ram that slide back to the limit!... Four, your body’s falling out of the boat! Keep your outside leg and hand firm!... Three, drop your hands more so as to get your oar out of the water clean.... That’s vastly better!... Two, you’re too slow with your hands and too quick with your body. Shoot your hands away lively and turn your inside wrist sharply; then follow with the body more slowly.... Bow, you’re rolling the boat again! Catch the water more sharply!... Time! Time! Listen for the rattle of the oars in the locks, men; you’re[181] beastly ragged!... Stroke, you’re rowing light again! Keep your hands up to the end!”

And so on for another half mile, when the boat was again turned and brought back to the landing, where the second squad were embarking under the direction of its coxswain. “Let her run!” cried Keene, and the first squad lifted their dripping oars from the water and the shell approached the float silently, easily. “Touch her a bit, Stroke.” Dick’s oar went back into the water and he paddled gently until the boat’s head was brought nearer to the landing. “Easy, Stroke. Mind your oars, bow side!” Then the shell floated alongside, was seized by those on the float, and the oars were unlocked. “Stroke!... Bow!... Seven!... Two!... Six!... Three!... Five!... Four!” called the coxswain, and one by one the crew stepped out. Then the shell was lifted, dripping and shining from the water, and borne into the house. The second squad had meanwhile paddled into the stream, and their troubles had begun. Down the river they went, followed by the inexorable Kirk and the puffing Terrible.

Dick, weary, out of tune with himself for his sorry work, led the first squad off on a short run, down the river-path to the campus, across the golf links, still too soft for good running, and back by Academy Road toward the gymnasium, to baths and rest. And as he trotted along the voice of the coach echoed continuously in his ears: “Stroke, you’re rowing light again!” Anger at his own miserable[182] performance in the boat and an intense loathing for it all seized upon him. Taylor could have the job, and welcome! He felt a downright hate of the fellows behind him because they had witnessed his degradation. What could they think, he asked himself, of a captain who had been cautioned four times for the same fault in a half-hour’s work? How could they—what had been Trevor’s words? Look up? Yes—how could they look up to such a captain? Hang them! What did he care what they thought of him? A pack of selfish, half-hearted idiots, they were! But in the next moment he acknowledged that he did care—a good deal. And with that the squad reached the gymnasium, and Dick pulled himself wearily up the steps. On the way across the yard later he encountered Keene.

“Hope, Kirk asked me to tell you he’d like to have you go over to his room this evening after supper if you can. I was on my way to your room.”

“All right; I’ll go. I say, Keene, what did you think of us to-day?”

One of the coxswain’s virtues was a fondness for plain, direct language unadorned with verbiage.

“Rotten!” he answered earnestly. Dick nodded, made a pathetic effort at a smile, and strode on. Keene watched him thoughtfully until he disappeared into Masters Hall, then he turned and went on his way. “He won’t last until the race,” he muttered. “Rowed like a farmer to-day, and looks now as though tired out.”

[183]

Directly after supper Dick walked to the village and found Malcolm Kirk in his room at Hutchins’s boarding-house. He was seated before an open window, his feet on the sill, puffing voluminously at a brier pipe. Upon Dick’s advent he greeted him smilingly and pushed forward an armchair.

“Sit down, Hope. It was very good of you to come over. I might have done the journeying myself and called on you, but I thought we’d have a better chance of a talk here in my diggings. Rather an off-day, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.” Dick relapsed into silence after this monosyllabic reply, and Kirk occupied himself with his pipe for a moment. Then he faced Dick, with a return to his usual grave aspect.

“Hope, you’re not looking well. I want you to lay off for a week. You’re stale; I could see that by your work to-day, and your face tells as much now. We can’t risk you getting laid up, you know.”

“I feel pretty well,” answered Dick. “But I don’t blame you for thinking I’m stale after the exhibition I made to-day,” he added bitterly. “I don’t know what got into me; I rowed like a—like a chump!”

“Well, don’t let that trouble you,” replied Kirk, soothingly. “It’s bound to happen once in a while; I never saw a crew captain yet that didn’t go off his work for a bit at some stage in the game; in fact, I should be rather afraid of one that didn’t; I should think he was like the Sunday-school[184] books—too good to be true. How’s your appetite?”

“Pretty fair.”

“Sleep well?”

“Not very.”

“Why?”

“Because—— Oh, I suppose it’s because of the wretched state things are in.”

“Crew, you mean?”

Dick nodded.

“Well, affairs don’t look bright just at present; I’ll acknowledge that, Hope; in fact, it’s best to own up to the condition and face it squarely. But that doesn’t mean that there’s anything to be gained by worrying about it. No, take my advice; do your best, knock off work for a few days, make up your mind that everything’s going to come out right in the end, and keep whistling. After all—though I wouldn’t say this to any one but you—there’s not a particle of disgrace in being beaten, not a particle. I don’t want you to imagine that I’ve got it into my head that we’re going to be beaten; for I haven’t; I’ve seen plenty of more hopeless-looking cases than this right themselves when the time came. But what I mean is that it’s a poor plan to tell yourself that defeat is disgraceful; if you believe that you’ll find yourself in a condition for suicide some day; for every chap, no matter who, has got to face defeat at some time in his life. And the chap that can take[185] a drubbing and come up smiling is the one that is going t............