Henley week came round in due course, but Mrs. Higginbotham, alas, did not come round with it. Her cold had settled on her lungs and the poor lady was brought very low. At the time Mr. Binney hoped to have been paddling her about on the Thames in a Canadian canoe she was surveying the beauties of Torquay in a bathchair. Mr. Binney had been told by Minshull that if he really wished to pass the Trinity entrance examination in October, it was absolutely imperative that he should not lose a single day's work if he could possibly help it, so Lucius won a reprieve for that occasion, at least, and as the Eton boys managed to win the Ladies' Plate and rowed a good race in the semi-final heat for the Grand Challenge Cup, he spent on the whole a pleasant Henley. During the first few weeks of his holidays he was training for and rowing in some of the up-river regattas, and September he spent with various school-fellows in Scotland, so it was not until just before he was due at Cambridge that he found himself once more in the house in Russell Square and the society of his father. Mr. Binney, in the meantime, fired with a mighty ambition to show his mettle and acquit himself well in his examination, had retired to an east coast village with Minshull, and devoted himself strenuously to his books. He had worked very hard for six months, but a man who has left a cheap commercial school at the age of fourteen, and that thirty years before, can hardly expect to do in that time what a public school boy has been working steadily up to ever since his education began. A month before the examination, Minshull saw that his pupil had no chance of success, and told him so one morning as they were walking together by the sea. Mr. Binney was heart-broken. "_No_ chance, Minshull?" he asked plaintively. "I don't mind working another two hours a day, you know. Isn't there _any_ chance?" "I'm afraid not, Mr. Binney," said Minshull. "You have worked very hard; you couldn't have done better; but you see the work is all new to you. You might get in at the Hall, perhaps, or if you cared about it I should think I might have enough influence with the Peterhouse authorities to----" "Never," said Mr. Binney firmly. "Trinity or nowhere. If I make up my mind to a thing, I stick to it. I shouldn't have made my fortune if I hadn't." "I should advise you, sir, to give up all ideas of attempting the October examination," said Minshull. "I can assure you you can't possibly pass it, and if you do very badly it may be prejudicial to your chances in the future. Take a month's holiday, or you'll knock yourself up. Then set to work again and be ready for them next spring." "I feel you're right," said poor Mr. Binney. "I feel you're right, Minshull, but it's a sad blow. You'll excuse me if I just walk on alone for a bit. I shall get over it better."