NEVER did small boy yearn for the swimming-hole as Roger Hardie for the next practice. He lay awake for an hour, going over the details of the stroke as he hoped to use it. He had got control of the oar now, he was sure; he didn’t swing out, he didn’t rush his slide, and he did pull straight through—all positive virtues. The problem now was to catch sharply, to pick up the movement with the legs as his trunk came up, shoot the whole body back in one continuous and even strain, throwing his entire weight against the stretcher—“jump right back from the stretcher,” as Caffrey had once said. After that he must make a smart recover, get the hands away promptly, and rest as his slide went cautiously back, so as to be able to put all his strength and weight into the next push against the water. It wasn’t the back that was to do the rowing, nor the arms, but the whole body, and especially the legs. All this as theory was splendidly clear, but how much could he put in practice? What right had a clumsy fellow like him to expect to attain a skill which other fellows had failed to gain with years of practice? He fell asleep with this question echoing in his brain, alternately vowing that he would do it and convinced that he could not. The rising bell woke him. He was unspeakably glad to be waked, for he was dreaming that he had fallen back into his old bad ways, that the water sucked the oar blade down after every stroke, that Coolidge and Wilmot had rebelled and Pete had told him to try baseball, and put Redfield into his place. He was inclined to take the dream as a bad omen until at luncheon Talbot informed him that Weld was out with a sore finger, and that he would have to row bow on the second that afternoon. He bethought himself then that dreams are said to go by contraries, and took heart. Caffrey seated himself in Mike’s place when the crews went out—Mike was cox of the second—and coached the first from the second boat, occasionally transferring his exhortation to the crew that pulled him. Hardie put his whole soul into his rowing and listened with all his ears. Caffrey’s principal point of attack in the first boat was Pitkin at bow, whom he accused of minor shortcomings and one very serious fault—not rowing hard enough. “You’re late all the time, Bow. Your oar must move as soon as it strikes the water, otherwise you back water. You’re shirking, Bow! Don’t let the boat finish out your stroke. Keep over the keel, Two; you’re rolling round too much. Don’t follow your arms around, that makes you swing out. Together there—you’re awfully sloppy!” And then he gave his attention for a time to the second. “Pull straight through, Three. Keep your hands down and pull straight in. Quicker on the recover, Bow. Don’t feather under. Take your oar out square and feather as you drop your hands and shoot away. That’s better. Don’t bury your oar so deep!”