Answer to the above—
"Dear——
"I am in reciet of your letter it is true that I smoked two whifs (not "wiffs" as you say)
out of another man's pipe but that's all however I don't want to row in your beastly boat.
"Yours, etc."
Aquatic Axioms.
I may add here some axioms which have been printed before,[11] but which I may venture to repeat in a treatise on rowing. The years that have passed since they were first set down have not weakened my conviction that they are accurate. I still believe myself justified in stating—
(1) That if two crews row a course within ten minutes of one another, the wind is always more violent and the stream more powerful against the crew in which you yourself happen to be rowing.
(2) That it is always right to take off at least five seconds from the time shown on your stop-watch in timing your own crew, and to add them, by way of compensation, to the time shown on the same watch when timing a rival crew.
(3) That your own crew is absolutely the only one which ever rows the full course right out or starts at the proper place.