He left Mr. Binney in a fervour of amended ambitions. What a grand thing it would be to have a friend like Mirrilees, a man whom most people turned round to look at if they passed him in the street, a man who had already rowed two years in the University boat and would probably row two years more before he left Cambridge, a man whose name was known all over England. Why, it was almost as good as knowing Muttlebury or Guy Nickalls. Lucius knew him, of course, lucky young beggar. He wondered whether it was worth while making another attempt to make acquaintances through his son, but the memory of Blathgowrie and others deterred him, for Lucius's friends were not all Mirrilees's, and he made up his mind to deserve the great man's favour by a brilliant career as a cox, and extreme carefulness as to his behaviour both on the river and away from it. And so for the best part of that term Mr. Binney's behaviour was irreproachable. He never missed a lecture or an appointment with his Coach, and the amount of work he got through in the privacy of his rooms was little short of marvellous. He was on the river, of course, every afternoon, and suffered greatly from the exposure to the cold as he sat in his narrow seat, fumbling with numbed hands at the rudder lines, and was carried swiftly along by the combined exertions of the eight stalwart men who faced him. His appearance always caused some merriment on the tow-path, and the town urchins were a great trial to him with their coarse banter, but the men of the First Trinity Boat Club, as a rule, treated him with the respect due to his years, and, if they did show a slight disinclination to walk up from the boats with him, or to admit him into very close intimacy with them, he made up his mind to bear the deprivation, trusting that it would disappear in time, rather than fall again into the mistake he had made in trying to force himself upon Blathgowrie and his friends. As for Howden, there was not so much trouble with him as Mr. Binney had expected. For one thing, he played Rugby football regularly for the University, and, although no such arduous course of training is expected from a football player as is necessary in the case of an oarsman, still a continuous course of hilarious dinners is not regarded with favour by those in authority, and Howden did not apply so often as before for sustenance at Mr. Binney's table. Mr. Binney also conceived the idea of employing Howden himself to keep his friends off him. He got him to talk about his financial troubles one morning, a subject which he had before instinctively avoided. Howden was nothing loth, and poured out a dismal tale of debts and duns. Mr. Binney then afforded him temporary pecuniary relief, and asked, as a favour, that Howden should inform his friends that he, Mr. Binney, was very busy this term and would not be able to see quite so much of them as before. Howden accepted the responsibility, and discharged it satisfactorily, and Mr.