On the next afternoon, however, it was decided for him. He was sitting over his books for an hour before hall when he received a call from Mirrilees, the Captain of the First Trinity Boat Club. Mirrilees was an acquaintance of whom Mr. Binney might reasonably have been proud if he had ever shown the slightest wish to have anything to do with our hero apart from his official position as captain of the boat club to which Mr. Binney belonged. He was tall and well set up, a really fine oar and a thoroughly good fellow in the best sense of that misused term. He was not everybody's friend, even in the exceedingly tolerant atmosphere of undergraduate Cambridge, and athletes of the type of Howden disliked him, and said so freely; but Mr. Binney had kept his own opinion on this point, and if there was one man in Cambridge whom he respected with all the force of the hero-worship which was a part of his still undeveloped character, it was Mirrilees. He therefore rose to his feet, and showed by his nervousness of manner that he fully appreciated the honour done to him.
Mirrilees sat down on the sofa and refused the proffered suggestion of refreshment. His keen eyes glanced round the room and then rested on Mr. Binney.
"I told you last term," he said, "that we might want you to steer the first Lent boat. You're a light weight and you've got a head on your shoulders. At least you haven't lost it yet on the river, although you seem to have done so occasionally elsewhere."
What Mr. Binney suffered at that instant in the way of remorse is beyond description. This was a very different thing to Mr. Rimington's strictures on his conduct. He made no reply, but hung his head.
"Now I've come to offer you the place——" Mr. Binney revived a little—"but on certain conditions. I am not going to have the cox of any boat I've got anything to do with making himself more ridiculous than he is by nature. We shall be laughed at, of course, for having a man of your age in the boats at all. I don't mind that as long as that's all there is to laugh at. What I'm not going to stand is your making yourself the butt and crony of every drunken rowdy in Cambridge. I say what I've got to say perfectly straight as captain of the club to one of its members who may turn out useful to it. If you lay it to heart and don't take offence I shall have done what I wanted to do. If you don't like such plain speaking, say so, and I'll clear out, and we need never speak to one another again."
Mr. Binney's choler had shown signs of rising during this very plain and unvarnished statement of the light in which Mirrilees regarded him, but the hint with which the address had closed brought it down again.
"I don't take offence," he said slowly, "though I'm not used to—to——"
"Well, perhaps I put it a bit too strong," said Mirrilees, "but if I were you I shouldn't have anything more to do with Howden and that lot. I hear that they were all here last night again as usual, and that's why I'm talking to you now. They're only sponging on you and making you appear a fool all the time. If you steer the first Lent boat this term—and mind, though I make no promises, that's intended to mean the first May boat next term—you'll have to train with the rest, and that will mean knocking off all these diversions; and you'll find plenty of good chaps in the boat club without running after footballers, amongst whom you can't exactly expect to shine."
"I'm very grateful to you, Mirrilees, for your kind advice," said Mr. Binney. "I shall certainly take it, and you may rely upon me to do my best for the honour of the club."
"That's all right then," said Mirrilees, rising. "Walters is captain of your boat, as you know, but I thought I'd just come round and settle things up. Good-night!"