feel - rather cold. But what am I to do with my boat?"

"Oh, the Lively Polly, or whatever her name is, will find her way
back safe enough. There are plenty of boatmen on the river who'll
see to her and take her back to her owner; and if you got her from
Hall's, I daresay she'll dream that she's dreamt in marble halls,
like you did, Giglamps, that night at Smalls', when you got wet in
rather a more lively style than you've done to-day. Now I'll tack
you up to that little shop I told you of."

So there our hero was put on shore, and Mr. Bouncer made fast his
boat and accompanied him; and did not leave him until he had seen him
between the blankets, drinking a glass of hot brandy-and-water, the
while his clothes were smoking before the fire.

This little adventure (for a time at least) checked Mr. Verdant
Green's aspirations to distinguish himself on the river; and he
therefore renounced the sweets of the Isis, and contented himself by
practising with a punt on the Cherwell. There, after repeatedly
overbalancing himself in the most suicidal manner, he at length
peacefully settled down into the lounging blissfulness of a "Cherwell
water-lily;" and on the hot days,


[AN OXFORD FRESHMAN 103]

among those gentlemen who had moored their punts underneath the
overhanging boughs of the willows and limes, and beneath
their cool shade were lying, in ~dolce far niente~ fashion, with
their legs up and a weed in their mouth, reading the last new novel,