The shouts from the bank were deafening. Mr. Binney lost his head and made shot after shot. If he had waited, his crew would have made their bump. But in the meantime they lost ground, and Third was creeping up again. Mr. Binney turned round in his seat and saw a long sharp point with a little ball at the end of it dancing gaily past his rudder. Behind it was the back of his son, swinging regularly. "Keep off!" roared Mr. Binney, and made another dab at the Head boat. Then he turned round again. The little ball was within reach of him, and behind it was Lucius rowing more vigorously than ever. Mr. Binney was aware of the ball and the back, and nothing else in all the world. He lost his head completely and turned round in his seat, half rising, pulling his right rudder line, and so crammed his boat right on to the high bank under the tow-path. "Catch a crab, or you go down to-morrow," he shrieked to Lucius. The next moment, he could never recall how, he found himself floundering in the river, in an inextricable confusion of boats, oars, and shouting, struggling humanity. He could not swim. As he rose to the surface the blade of an oar hit him on the head. He went down again, and gave himself over, but when he came up the second time he felt himself grasped by the collar of his blazer. "Don't kick!" gasped the voice of his son. "I'll get you out." When he was hauled on to the tow-path, panting and dripping, he turned round on Lucius in a fury: "What do you mean by it? It was your fault," he shrieked. "You'll go down! you'll go down!" Mirrilees, dripping from head to foot, with a slimy weed clinging round his leg, shouldered his way through the crowd. "Hold your tongue, you little beast, or I'll pitch you into the river again," he said. Other things happened to Mr. Binney that evening, of which he does not now speak--some of them on his way to the First Trinity boat-house, some of them when he got there, others as he made his way for the last time to his rooms in Jesus Lane, and others again before he found himself in the train on his way to London, having shaken the dust of Cambridge from his feet for ever. The next night Third Trinity bumped Trinity Hall and went head of the river. First Trinity were badly steered by the coxswain who had been put into Mr. Binney's place, and succumbed to Jesus. CHAPTER XVII MR. BINNEY DRINKS THE HEALTH OF A "BLUE"