movement towards Folly Bridge; but Charles Larkyns


[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 101]

at once came to the rescue with the simple but energetic compendium
of boating instruction, "Put your oar in deep, and bring it out with
a jerk!"

Bearing this in mind, our hero's efforts met with well-merited
success; and he soon passed that mansion which, instead of cellars,
appears to have an ingenious system of small rivers to thoroughly
irrigate its foundations. One by one, too, he passed those
house-boats which are more like the Noah's arks of
toy-shops than anything else, and sometimes contain quite as original
a mixture of animal specimens. Warming with his exertions, Mr.
Verdant Green passed the University barge in great style, just as the
eight was preparing to start; and though he was not able to "feather
his oars with skill and dexterity," like the jolly young waterman in
the song, yet his sleight-of-hand performances with them proved not
only a source of great satisfaction to the crews on the river, but
also to the promenaders on the shore.

He had left the Christ Church meadows far behind, and was beginning
to feel slightly exhausted by his unwonted exertions, when he reached
that bewildering part of the river termed "the Gut." So confusing
were the intestine commotions of this gut, that, after passing a
chequered existence as an aquatic shuttlecock, and being assailed
with a slang-dictionary-full of opprobrious epithets, Mr. Verdant
Green caught another