By this time they had reached the spot where their racing-shell--sixty-two feet of flimsy cedar wood--was lying waiting for them. The rest of the crew, already assembled, were standing about in the attitudes of profound dejection or forced hilarity which appear to be the only alternatives of deportment open to men who are suffering from what is expressively termed "the needle." Some were whistling, others were yawning, and all were wondering why on earth men took up rowing as a pastime. Hughie gathered his Argonauts into a knot, and at his request the Reverend Montague D'Arcy outlined to them the plan of campaign. Then the crew embarked, and the stout clergyman assisted the grizzled College boatman--the only person present whose nerves appeared unaffected by the prevailing tension--to push their craft clear of the bank, and set them going on a half-minute dash as a preliminary to their long paddle down the course to the starting point of the race. In accordance with a picturesque but peculiar custom they wore in their straw hats bunches of marigolds and corn-flowers--the College colours--as an intimation that they had achieved bumps during the preceding nights; and so bedecked they paddled majestically down the Long Reach, feeling extremely valorous and looking slightly ridiculous, to challenge a comparison (in which they were hopelessly outclassed from the start) with the headgear of the assembled fair in Ditton Paddock. The method of sending off a bumping race is the refinement of cruelty. As each boat reaches its starting-post the crews disembark and stand dismally about, listening to the last exhortations of coaches or nervously eyeing the crew behind them. Presently an objectionably loud piece of artillery, situated half-way down the long line of boats, goes off with a roar. This is called "first gun," and means chiefly that there will be another in three minutes. The crew mournfully denude themselves of a few more articles of their already scanty wardrobe, which they pile upon the shoulders of the perspiring menial whose duty it is to convey the same to the finishing-post, and crawl one by one into their places in the boat. Finally, the coxswain coils himself into his seat and takes both rudder-lines in his left hand, leaving the right free to grasp the end of the boat's last link with _terra firma_, her starting-chain. Then the second gun goes, and the crew shudder and know that in sixty seconds precisely they must start. The ritual observed during the final minute is complicated in the extreme, and varies directly with the nervous system of the coach, who dances upon the bank with a stop-watch in his hand, to time the ministrations of the College boatman, who stands by with a long boat-hook ready to prod the vessel into midstream. "Fifteen seconds gone," says the coach. "Push her out, Ben."