"I suppose," said he, "that Hancock and Adams and Emerson and Longfellow and all the rest of them will sleep more peacefully in their graves if we beat Yale, and if we get thrashed no doubt old Dr. Holmes will be sorry he ever came to Cambridge, and will at once go down to New Haven to take his entrance examination for the Freshman class there. Haven't you grown up yet, that you look on these things as a school boy? These overwrought struggles can do good in just one way, and you seem ready now to throw away even that advantage. Every time a thoroughbred gets licked it does him good. You have seen the men on our different teams get up after a thrashing and go at it as hard as ever the next year; you have yourself gone through a splendid school of defeat and disappointment, yet now you talk about lying down for all your lifetime if you lose a boat-race. It is true you cannot row against Yale again, but there is a bigger victory than that to be won. Have you for the first time lost all your heart after a failure? You of all men should not need to be told that a prize is never lost until won. At any rate lay up in reserve for yourself the consolation of having done your best. Charley, Charley, if you throw up the sponge after one knockdown, you are not the man I have always thought you." Rivers listened to all this, with head bent. When Hollis stopped he raised his face again and said: "I know what you mean, old man, and you are right. I won't lie down like a cur. I'll pull it through to the finish, anyway. But in the meantime I must do like a man whatever I have taken up." "Now you are talking like your old self," answered Hollis, "but don't forget that doing your duty like a gentleman is not confined to rowing a boat-race." After this broadside Rivers went on with his rowing in a better spirit than he had shown during that year. Before long he was immensely cheered up also by the promise of a position with a good salary and chance of advancement, that was to be ready for him right after the boat-race. Jack Rattleton, through his father, had succeeded in getting this for him. His absorbing devotion to his rowing fortunately did not prevent him from getting his degree but he lost a _cum laude_ and had to "take his A.B. straight," as Burleigh said, "without any green leaves or nutmeg in it." There was another piece of parchment made out for Commencement Day, that was a surprise to every one. It was marked Johannes Rattleton. II.