John Edward Routh, fellow of Peterhouse College, was the most famous mathematical coach that Cambridge University had ever seen. In his lifetime he had coached several hundred wranglers, and for twenty-two consecutive years he had coached the senior wrangler of each year. This is really equivalent to saying that a certain jockey had ridden the Derby winner for twenty-two consecutive years. He was a senior wrangler himself in 1854, when great James Clerk Maxwell was second wrangler, and he divided with Maxwell the famous Smith’s prize in mathematics. To be admitted by Routh into his private classes was flattering, according to Niven, but to be able to keep up with them would be a most encouraging sign. Niven was anxiously waiting for that sign. Routh accepted me, but gave me to understand that my mathematical preparation was much below the standard of the boys who came to Cambridge to prepare for the mathematical tripos examinations, and that I should have to do considerable extra reading. He also cautioned me that all this meant very stiff work for a good part of the academic year. I went to Cambridge to study physics and not mathematics; but, according to Niven and Routh, my real desire, as far as they could make it out, was to study mathematical physics, and they assured me that my training with Routh, if I could keep the pace, would soon lay a good foundation for that. Lord Rayleigh lectured on mathematical physics and so did famous Professor Stokes (later Sir George Gabriel Stokes); but according to Routh and Niven I was not prepared to attend any of these lectures, and much less to read Maxwell’s famous mathematical treatise on his new electrical theory. Niven reminded me once of my first visit to Cambridge, when I had insisted that Cambridge without Maxwell had no attractions for me, and he asked me, jokingly, whether Lord Rayleigh’s lectures were good enough for me. I answered that they certainly were, but that, unfortunately, I was not good enough for the lectures. “Next year you will be,” said Niven, consoling me; and I, unable to suppress my feeling of disappointment, answered: “Let us pray that the starving jackass does not drop dead before the grass is green again.” “What’s that?” asked Niven, somewhat puzzled. “That is a free translation of a Serbian proverb, and I am the jackass,” said I, and refused to furnish any further explanations. But Niven figured it out correctly in the course of the evening and then laughed heartily. He confessed that Serbo-American humor was somewhat involved and required considerable analysis.