the facundity of my eloquence, and
should indubitably have been the recipient of innumerable felicitations
but for the fact that Miss SPINK, suddenly experiencing sensations of
insalubriousness, requested me, without delay, to conduct her from the
assemblage.

I would willingly make a repetition of my visit and rhetorical triumphs,
only Miss SPINK informs me that she has recently terminated her
membership with the above society.

IX

_How he saw the practice of the University Crews, and what he thought of
it._

The notorious Intercollegian Boat-race of this _anno Domini_ will be
obsolete and _ex post facto_ by the time of publication of the present
instalment of jots and tittles, still I am sufficiently presumptive to
think that the cogitations and personal experiences of a cultivated,
thoughtful native gentleman on this coerulean topic may not be found
so stale and dry as the remainder of a biscuit.

First I will make a clean bosom with the confession that, though
ardently desirous to witness such a Titianic struggle for the _cordon
bleu_ of old Father Antic the Thames, I was not the actual spectator of
the affair, being previously contracted to escort Miss MANKLETOW (whose
wishfulness is equivalent to legislation) to a theatrical matutinal
performance, which she would in nowise consent to renounce, alleging
that she had already seen the Boat-race to the verge of satiety, and
that the spectacle was instantaneous and paltry.

However, on acquainting my kind and patronising father, Hon'ble _Punch_,
of my disappointment, he did benevolently propose, as a _pis aller_ and
blind bargain, a voyage in the steam launch-boat of the official
coachman of one of the crews so that I might ascertain how the trick was
done.

And at 10 A.M. on the day of assignation I presented myself at the
riparian premises of a certain Boating Society, and, on exhibiting my
letter of credit to the Mentor or Corypheus aforesaid, was received _a
bras ouverts_ and with an urbane offhandedness.

After I had hung fire and cooled my heels on the banks for a while, I
was instructed to enter a skiff, which conveyed me and others to a
steamship of very meagre dimensions, whereupon owing to the heel of one
of my Japan leather shoes becoming implicated in the wire railing that
circumvented the desk, I was embarked in a horizontal attitude, and
severely deteriorated the tall chimneypot hat which I had assumed to do
credit to the hon'ble p