“One day near the end of the week Caffrey went out with us. He watched me all the time, but he didn’t say anything to me in particular except to get away on my slide hard at the start and slow down at the finish, and to keep the top edge of my blade just below the surface of the water, and not feather under. I knew all this before, but rowing directions are awfully hard to apply. You have to watch the back of the man in front of you for your stroke, and yet start at the very instant he does. That means that you must feel when he is going to start and start with him. That’s an example of what they expect of you in a boat; other things are a good deal harder. “On Friday the first went to Suffolk to race the Suffolk School. They have a little course out there of about a quarter of a mile, and they practice for just this short distance with an awfully quick stroke. Of course they always beat the crews that come to row them because the visitors are not used to rowing that way. It is like putting a half-miler to run a hundred yards with a sprinter. Well, our crew pulled an awfully snappy race and came within a quarter of a length of winning. They would have won, too, Rust said (the cox), if Pitkin had not got rattled with the fast stroke and caught a crab and lost a good half-length. He was all in, too, at the finish, while Pete and Jim Eaton and Bursley felt as if they were just beginning to row. The Suffolk fellows always row themselves out. Rust told me all about it. Of course I did not go. The crew had to leave at 12 o’clock to get the train, and they don’t let you cut recitations here to see races. They think they are terribly generous to let the crew off.