“We’ll have to use our wits, Hope. Above all, don’t allow yourself to become discouraged. We still have a couple of weeks before us, and--well, I guess we can accomplish something in that time. Are you ready?” Together they passed out onto the floor and in a few minutes the first squad of crew candidates had begun their training. Of the twenty, two had rowed in the varsity boat of the preceding year, four had rowed with the second eight, three had trained as substitutes, and the balance, eleven candidates, represented new and inexperienced material as far as shell-rowing was concerned. Well-nigh all were what Trevor would have termed “wetbobs,” and had paddled about in tubs or perhaps rowed now and then in a pair-oar. Professor Beck and Dick were busy for the half hour that constituted the first day’s exercising. Generally speaking, each candidate required a different work from his neighbors. In Brown the forearm muscles were undeveloped; in Smith the chest muscles had been neglected; in Jones the back was as unbending as a two-inch plank, while Robinson, perchance, was in a state of general flabbiness. The professor viewed attentively the work of each boy, altered the exercise here, stopped it there, increased it elsewhere, while Dick stood beside him, listening to his instructions and memorizing, as pointed out to him, the needs of the different ones. After awhile the fellows were sent to the track for the briefest of trots, and so, having stood for an instant under a shower-bath, dressed, and went their ways full-fledged crew candidates, with an inalienable right to look down condescendingly upon their schoolmates, to cut Friday night lectures, and comport themselves generally in the manner of coming heroes. And Dick, with Trevor at his side, went back to his room for an hour of study before supper, not overjoyful, but yet somewhat comforted by the professor’s hopefulness and by the fact that real work had at last commenced. On Friday night Professor Beck announced to Dick that the fourteen newer candidates had been examined, and in five instances found wanting. “Of those that remain,” said the professor, “two look like good men; as for the rest----” He shrugged his shoulders eloquently. “But we can tell better in a week or two. Meanwhile, we must keep up the recruiting. I have my eye on an upper middle boy, and I think I’ll have him hooked in a day or two. If we can secure say another half dozen good men I think we can pull out all right.”