"Now boys, let's all go in; Oxford--Oxford sure to win, Tommy Dodd." Others sold small rosettes with the words "Oxford Laurels" engraved, and Harvard badges made of red, white, and blue lutestring, bearing the arms of the United States, the eagle rampant, and screaming fiercely, while one costermonger's cart had elevated on canvas in bold letters, the words of Nelson at Trafalgar, forever classic in the English tongue: "ENGLAND EXPECTS THIS DAY THAT EVERY MAN SHALL DO HIS DUTY." Almost every person who passed this costermonger cart cheered or approved of the legend in some way, while as a counter irritant a party of Americans who had hired a whole house, had the Star Spangled Banner displayed with the following couplet underneath, in glaring type, and which attracted very considerable attention: "Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just, And this be our motto: In God be our trust!" I saw numbers of Americans, during the great excitement of that memorable day, pass and repass the sacred symbol of their country just for the sake of lifting their hats to the dear old flag. Blood _is_ thicker than water--even if it was only a boat race. One young fellow who had been for four years studying his profession at Halle, in Germany, and had not seen the Gridiron during that time, doffed his hat twice and was cheered from the balcony in return; and when he came to me and spoke, his eyelashes were humid, and, when I asked him what was the matter, he answered in a polyglot of Deutsch and English: [Sidenote: THE DEAR OLD FLAG.] "Ach Gott! I've been having a blamed good cry at the sight of the Stars and Stripes." And thus the day passed, and the sun declined in force and fell in strips of silver and gold and purple on Putney church and steeple, and on all that mad, roaring, shouting, gambling, eating, and drinking multitude, that lined both banks of the river from Putney to Mortlake--a million human beings in all--to witness ten lads struggle for less than half an hour in two frail boats. [Illustration] CHAPTER XXIV. STRUGGLE AND VICTORY. AS I passed down the towing path toward the stone house where the Harvard crew were resting, I saw the blue blades of four slender oars elevated above the crowd, and passing through the closely wedged ranks. The men who carried them, the Oxford Four, appeared on the river's bank--four fine looking young fellows, with the coxswain, a mere lad, in their rowing suits. They were going to take a paddle preparatory to the race, for half a mile up the Thames toward the Duke of Devonshire's. They looked well, and were loudly cheered as they got into their boat. They paddled up the river.