"Fourth day. * * * Worcester was more fortunate, and succeeded in making the bump at the Cherwell, in consequence of No. 3 of the Brazenface boat fainting from fatigue." Under "No. 3" Mr. Verdant Green had drawn a pencil line, and had written "V. G." He shortly after related to his family the gloomy particulars of the bump, when he returned home for the Easter vacation. CHAPTER XI. MR. VERDANT GREEN GETS THROUGH HIS SMALLS. Despite the hindrance which the _grande passion_ is supposed to bring to the student, Charles Larkyns had made very good use of the opportunities afforded him by the leisure of his grace-term. Indeed, as he himself observed, "Who hath not owned, with rapture-smitten frame, The power of _grace_?" And as he felt that the hours of his grace-term had not been wasted in idleness, but had been turned to profitable account, it is not at all unlikely that his pleasures of hope regarding his Degree-examination, and the position his name would occupy in the Class-list, were of a roseate hue. He therefore, when the Easter vacation had come to an end, returned to Oxford in high spirits, with our hero and his friend Mr. Bouncer, who, after a brief visit to "the Mum," had passed the remainder of the vacation at the Manor Green. During these few holiday weeks, Charles Larkyns had acted as private tutor to his two friends, and had, in the language of Mr. Bouncer, "put them through their paces uncommon;" for the little gentleman was going in for his Degree, _alias_ Great-go, _alias_ Greats; and our hero for his first examination _in literis humanioribus_, _alias_ Responsions, _alias_ Little-go, _alias_ Smalls. Thus the friends returned to Oxford mutually benefited; but, as the time for examination drew nearer and still nearer, the fears of Mr. Bouncer rose in a gradation of terrors, that threatened to culminate in an actual panic. "You see," said the little gentleman, "the Mum's set her heart on my getting through, and I must read like the doose. And I havn't got the head, you see, for Latin and Greek; and that beastly Euclid altogether stumps me; and I feel as though I should come to grief. I'm blowed," the little gentleman would cry, earnestly and sadly, "I'm blow'd if I don't think they must have given me too much pap when I was a babby, and softened my brains! or else, why can't I walk into these classical parties just as easy as you, Charley, or old Giglamps there? But I can't, you see: my brains are addled. They say it ain't a bad thing for reading to get your head shaved. It cools your brains, and gives full play to what you call your intellectual faculties. I think I shall try the dodge, and get a gent's real head of hair, till after the exam.; and then, when I've stumped the examiners, I can wear my own luxuriant locks again." [Illustration]