The excitement of football had passed like most things in college and out of it. The 'Varsity had triumphed over Princeton, and tied with Harvard in a stirring, up-hill game, and now the students had settled down to the ordinary routine. While it was late in November, the fall had been such an open one that the crews, eager to get every day of practice possible, stuck to their work in the harbor. Codfish held manfully onto the job of coxswain in the Second Freshmen eight, the long-looked-for place on the First still eluding him. He was hopeful, however. "I'll get it before the rowing stops, and if not then, when it starts in the spring," he boasted to his roommates. "Watch me."

This afternoon he was perched on the window seat, legs crossed, lolling back on the cushions, and tickling the guitar.

"For the love of Mike," cried Frank from his room, where he had gone to nab an elusive French irregular or two, "isn't that 'stoogent from Cadiz' ever going to graduate?"

"Why so peevish?" inquired the Codfish, keeping up his strumming and humming. "There are fourteen different keys, you know, Mr. Armstrong, and as you never know which one you're going to be caught in, I've got to be a Spanish student in every one of them. I only have ten more to fix in my retentive memory, so the agony will soon be through."

"How many have you circumvented?"

"Six to date. I'm going to tackle the minors to-night; plaintive little things, those minors, they get the heart-throb stuff."

"Heavens!" said Frank. "Why don't you hire a hall somewhere out in Hampden? I'll go halves with you to get rid of you."

"'Music hath charms to soothe the savage beast,'" quoted the Codfish, "but not the football player."

"Music did you say?" growled Frank.

"No soul, no soul at all for the beautiful," sighed the guitar player. "Such music ought to move you to tears."

"It does, bitter tears, very bitter tears. Please desist, stop and quit. I'm having trouble with this dose of Romance language. I wonder why they ever called them Romance languages?"

"Give it up." Then, throwing down the guitar: "I say, Frank, chuck it and come down to the harbor. We are going to have a bit of a brush with the First Freshmen crew, and you've never seen your old pal hold the tiller ropes. Maybe I can get you into the launch. We go out at three. Where's Turner and David?"

"David is probably grubbing on his Lit. stuff, and there's no use in trying to get him. Jimmy went over to Chapel street to get something, and ought to be back here in a minute. Here he comes now. I'll go if he does."

Turner came into the room whistling a merry tune, threw himself on the couch and elevated his heels to the end of the desk in the national attitude.

"Gee whiz, but it's a great day! Why don't you fellows get out? Not many more days like this between now and next May."

"The Codfish has just invited us down to the harbor to see how well he can't steer a boat, and I said I'd go if you would. I've some French here, but there's no hope of doing it when this musical bug is doing his stunts."

"I'm your man," said Turner, jumping up at once. "I know the coach and maybe we can get on the launch."

"I'll attend to that," said the Codfish, majestically. "I haven't been knocking around that old boathouse two months for my health. You are my guests to-day."

"Go it, old skate. So long as we get aboard we don't mind who does the trick."

"Lead on, Macduff," quoted Frank, and like playful dogs newly unleashed, they broke for the street. Racing over to Chapel street, they caught a steamboat car at the York street corner, and, after a fifteen-minute ride, reached their destination.

On the float was a scene of great activity. The crews of half a dozen boats were standing around waiting their turn to embark. Some carried oars in their hands, others were stretched at full length on the runways, taking in to the full the rays of the warming late fall sun. Most of them were stripped to the waist as in summer, for the day had an uncommon warmth. One crew had just landed, evidently from a smart row, for sweat glistened on their bare and brawny backs, as they unshipped their oars and at the word of their coxswain snapped their shell out of the water and turned it upside down over their heads in one splendid free sweep.

They were just in time to see the 'Varsity go out, eight clean-limbed, stalwart young fellows, who carried their shell easily, with a quick and springy step, and with almost military precision. Without a word spoken, the long sweeps were quickly adjusted in the row-locks. At a word from the captain, the men stepped to their seats, bent and fastened their feet into the sandal-like attachments at the footboards. Then the boat was shoved off until the long sweeps were free to catch the water on both sides of the boat.

"Row," snapped the coxswain, and eight blades cut the water like knives, sending up a little spurt of water in the front of each one of them. Like a machine the bodies swung back and forth, the blades dipped rhythmically, and in a minute the crew was but a dot in the waters of the lower river where the 'Varsity launch, the "Elihu Yale," waited.

"By Jove," said Frank, admiration showing on his face, "that was about as pretty a thing as I can imagine."

"Don't you wish you had gone out for the crew?" inquired Turner. "They don't twist your ankles and knees down here, or muscle-bruise you."

"No, but they break your back and freeze you to death in the cold winds down here," said someone laughingly. "I just heard your friend's remark, and thought I'd enlighten you. Don't you remember me, Turner? We wrestled this fall one night, about a thousand years ago. Francis is my name."

Both then recognized the wrestler whom Turner threw over his head the night of the rush. He extended a frank hand. "Coming down to look us over?"

"Didn't know you rowed," said Turner, taking the proffered hand.

"Yes, I'm trying it. Not much good, either, but maybe I can help to push some other fellow up a peg higher. That's all we scrubs are good for, you know." He said it without any heat, merely stating the fact. "We help to cultivate the flowers, but we can't pick them. It's a part of the Yale training.

"Ta, ta, there's my call," and he dashed into the boathouse where his crew were preparing to take the shell out.

Following the Second 'Varsity, came the First Freshmen crew, and then on the heels of the First came the Second, the Codfish busying himself with an air of great importance.

Permission having been given Armstrong and Turner to watch the practice from the Freshman launch, which lay at the end of the float, they climbed in with alacrity. The launch preceded the two crews down to the bridge where it waited till the shell came up.

"Take it easy, now," said the Freshman coach as the crews lined up alongside. "Keep your stroke to about twenty-six and pull it through. Ready? ROW!"

Both crews dropped their blades in the water, pulled a long, slow stroke, and slipped rapidly up the river, the little launch darting first to one and then the other while the coach shot words of criticism at the oarsmen through a short megaphone.

"Number Five, don't slump down on the catch!"

"You're very short in the water, Number Two, finish it out and get your hands away quickly."

"Don't buck your oar, Four, on the finish; sit up straight."

"For heaven's sake," this to the Codfish. "Can't you keep that boat straight? What are you wabbling all over the river for?"

"'Vast, 'vast," he yelled as the rowing grew ragged. "'Vast" is short for "Avast," the usual signal to stop rowing.

When the crews came to rest on their oars, the coach shot a torrent of criticism at the men. No one escaped.

"Exactly like football," said Frank grinning. "No one ever gets it quite right."

"Only difference from football is," said Jimmy, "that the other fellow is getting the hot shot now. I guess I'll take mine on the field."

"Me, too," said Frank. "It doesn't strike me as inspiring, this crew business."

"And the Codfish isn't such a whirlwind as he tries to make us think," commented Turner.

The coxswain was coming in for a fire of criticism from the coach with the megaphone. "Now try it again and watch yourselves—you get worse every day."

"Doesn't it sound natural?" laughed Frank. "No more of that in ours for a year."

The crews, stopping and starting, but always under a shower of advice from the coach, drove their way up to the upper bridge where they were ordered to turn around and line-up for the race down stream. After much dogged paddling by fours and high-pitched orders by the coxswains, for the boats were difficult to swing around in the swift running current, they finally got about and were sent off with a word from the coach who had previously ordered them to keep below twenty-eight to the minute.

Down the river the boats flew, each crew striving with might and main. For a little time it was nip and tuck, but by degrees the First crew edged ahead, and half a mile from the start had a lead of three-quarters of a length and were rowing easily, while the winded Second was splashing along and dropping further back at every stroke. The Codfish was steering a serpentine course which further retarded his boat.

When the crews drew up at the end of the mile, both badly pumped out from the sprint, the coxswain of the Second came in for a raking by the coach.

"You wabbled down that course like a drunken man," he said hotly. "You ought to be on an oyster boat. What's the matter with you? Can't you see?"

"Poor Gleason, he's getting his this afternoon," said Frank.

For another hour the crews were kept on the jump and then, as the dusk was beginning to come down over the hills, the coach ordered them in.

"Race it for the float," he commanded, "and look out for the sand bar by the bridge. It's low water. GO!"

The Second was lying about a length ahead of the First boat when the order was given, and, seeing his opportunity, the Codfish shouted: "Now we've got them, beat 'em to it. Row, you terriers!"

Throwing what science they had learned to the winds, the Second Freshman crew drove their oars into the water and, at a stroke far above what the coach wanted, tore off for the boathouse, the shell swaying and the water flying while the Codfish urged them on at the top of his voice.

"Sock it through, you huskies, don't let them get you!"

The First crew, not to be outdone, started after the Second. At first they kept the stroke down, but the coxswain, seeing his chance of overhauling the renegades in the short distance to go, called on his stroke to "hit it up," which that individual was nothing loath to do.

"Cut them out before they get to the float," cried the coxswain of the First crew. Up went the stroke, and the race was on in earnest. The coaching launch had drifted down toward the bridge on the outgoing tide, before the coach saw what was in progress. He waved his arms, bawled through the megaphone, and gesticulated in an endeavor to stop the wild pace, but neither crew heard, nor wanted to stop if they had heard. This was not a race under instructions. It was only a private scrap and, as such, it stood, for the launch was too far off to overhaul the flying, splashing crews.

Foot by foot the First crew gained on the Second, which now, with the stroke over forty to the minute, merely stabbed their oars in the water and jerked them out again, while the spray flew from each assault of the blades. The better trained First crew kept the stroke longer, and in coming to the float were only a few yards behind. Edging in, they crowded the Second from their course, and in order to avoid a collision, the luckless Codfish steered his crew widely to the left. He knew, but had forgotten in the excitement of the race, that a narrow sand bar almost awash at low tide, was just below the central pier of the drawbridge.

"Look out there, Second crew," came the warning cry from the float now directly opposite the racing shells.

The coxswain in the Second heard, but it was too late. Straight onto the sand bar, on which rippled less than an inch of water, ran the slender nose of the shell. The brake thus suddenly applied to the frail craft checked the speed, and when the boat stuck midway of the bar, with each end suspended above deep water, every oarsman was thrown from his seat.

Immediately an ominous cracking was heard, and the front end began to sag with its load of more than five hundred pounds.

"Jump," yelled the captain, who rowed the bow oar; but before any of the forward four could free themselves from their foot harness, the slender boat snapped squarely in the middle, where it rested on the bar, and both pieces, with their crews aboard, slipped off into deep water, filled and sank.

For a moment it looked serious, but, fortunately, every member of the Second, with the exception of the Codfish, could swim. As they found themselves deeply immersed, they shook themselves free from their foot fastenings and struck out in the cold water for the float only a few rods distant, all excepting the Codfish. He kept his seat in the shell and held to the tiller ropes for dear life, while the current swept him down stream in the path of the oncoming launch.

As the rear end of the broken shell swung across the bow of the launch, the coach reached down, grabbed the ill-fated coxswain by the back of his coat, and jerked him into the launch. Then with a boat-hook both ends of the ruined craft were captured, for both ends, released from their weight, now floated buoyantly, and were towed to the float.

"I forgot about the sand bar," said the Codfish meekly, as he stood on the cockpit of the launch, the water running from him in streams.

"And you forgot my instructions, too," said the coach, his eyes blazing at the luckless coxswain. "This will do for you. Pack up your duds and don't come down here again. If I see you around this float again, I'll chuck you overboard." The bedraggled oarsmen had all made the float in safety, and enjoyed the discomfort of their coxswain who in his zeal had inadvertently given them a cold bath.

"How was I to remember the blooming sand bar?" complained the Codfish that night, radiant now in dry raiment. "We were winning. What's a sand bar in the glory of victory?"

"Are you going down again," inquired Frank, "and take the chances of a ducking?"

"Not on your tin-type," said the ex-coxswain. "The thing was beginning to pall on me. No diversity in the job, no spectators to urge you on as you have out at the field, nothing but work. I've resigned the job."

"Another way for saying you're fired, eh?" said Turner, smiling at the imperturbable roommate.

"Have it any way you want to, old sport. One thing," continued the Codfish, "even if I have lost the chance to shine in aquatics, I still have the Mandolin Club left. I'll put a dent in that by and by."

And curling himself up on the couch, with the pillows properly arranged at his back, he struck into the Spanish Fandango, the newest addition to his not very extended rÉpertoire.