After a fortnight's tubbing in pair-oars, the better candidates are tubbed daily in fours, and the autumn races are on the horizon. At the end of another week the boats are finally made up, and the crews settle down to the task of "getting together." Each of the fours has at least one seasoned oarsman to steady it, and is coached from the coxswain's seat by a member of the college eight. Sometimes, if the November floods are not too high, the coach runs or bicycles along the towing-path, where he can see the stroke in profile. If a coach swears at his men, there is sure to have been provocation. His favorite figure of speech is sarcasm. At the end of a heart-breaking burst he will say, "Now, men, get ready to _row_," or, "I say, fellows, wake up; _can't you make a difference?_" The remark of one coach is now a tradition--"All but four of you men are rowing badly, and they're rowing damned badly!" This convention of sarcasm is by no means old. One of the notable personages in Eights' Week is a little man who is pointed out to you as the Last of the Swearing Coaches. _Tempora mutantur._ Perhaps my friend the ex-coxswain is in line for a similar distinction. When the fours are once settled in their tubs, the stroke begins to go much better, and the daily paddle is extended so as to be a real test of strength and endurance for the new men, and for the man from the torpid a brisk practice spin. Even at this stage very few of the new men are "given the hoof;" the patience of the coachers is monumental. [Illustration: THE COLLEGE BARGES: TUBBING IN NOVEMBER FLOODS] The tubbing season is brought to an end with a race between the fours. Where there are half a dozen fours in training, two heats of three boats each are rowed the first day, and the finals between the best two crews on the following day. The method of conducting these races is characteristic of boating on the Isis and the Cam. As the river is too narrow to row abreast, the crews start a definite distance apart, and row to three flags a mile or so up the river, which are exactly as far apart as the boats were at starting. At each of these flags an eightsman is stationed. In the races I saw they flourished huge dueling pistols, and when the appropriate crew passed the flag, the appropriate man let off his pistol. The crew that is first welcomed with a pistol-shot wins. These races are less exciting than the bumping races; yet they have a picturesque quality of their own, and they settle the question of superiority with much less rowing. The members of the winning four get each a pretty enough prize to remember the race by, and the torpidsman at stroke holds the "Junior fours cup" for the year.