"His style may be better," admitted Walters a little reluctantly, "but he hasn't got that tremendous shove off the stretcher that makes the other so useful a man to follow. Besides, he has too much temper to be able to nurse and humour the lame ducks and bring them on as Durend has done." "Maybe--his temper certainly doesn't look sweet at the moment," replied Jones, gazing with a grim sort of amusement at Montgomery as the latter released his oar from the rowlock and stepped out of the boat, his handsome clean-cut face sadly marred by an undeniably ugly scowl. "Durend's work isn't showy, but I hear that Benson thinks a lot of it," Walters went on. "It's a pity Monty takes it so badly, for the crew has come along immensely and with ordinary luck ought to make a cert of it." "Riggers!" the stroke of the crew sang out, and the crew leaned out from the landing-stage and grasped the boat. "Lift!" and the boat was lifted clear of the water and up the slope to the boat-house hard by. From bow to stern the faces of the crew were smiling and cheerful, albeit streaming with perspiration, as they passed through the admiring knot of their school-fellows assembled to watch them in. All, that is, save Seven, aforesaid, and Stroke, who looked downcast, and whose lips were set firmly as though he found his task no very pleasant one, but had nevertheless made up his mind to see it through. In the dressing-room Montgomery vented his ill-humour somewhat pettishly, flinging his scarf and sweater anyhow into his locker and his dirty rowing boots violently after them. "I don't care a fig whether we win or lose," he growled. "I'm sick of being hectored by a coach who never was an oar, and a stroke who knows about as much about rowing as my grandmother." "Shut up, Monty!" replied another member of the crew good-naturedly. "Another week and it will be all over, and we shall be at the Head of the River for the first time--what?" The thought of Benson's first victory in its history seemed, if anything, to incense Montgomery still more, for he glared angrily at Durend's set face and went on: "It's always _my_ time or _my_ swing that's wrong, too, when everyone used to say that I was the best oar in the school. Bah! it's to cover up his own faults that he's always blaming me. For two pins I'd resign, Durend; and I will, too, if you're not a deal more careful." "You needn't," replied Durend shortly, but with a significance that was not lost upon those present. "What d'ye mean?" demanded Montgomery. "You're no longer in the crew." "What! _You_ turn me out? I'll take that from Benson, and from no one else, my boy!" "Mr. Benson has left it to me, and I say you're no longer in the crew," replied Durend coldly, and with no hint of triumph in his voice. He knew, in fact, that his action was probably the death-knell of all the hopes of his crew.