“The Leek,” was Ap Tydvill’s suggestion.
”‘Leek!’—an unlucky name!” observed Green, the coxswain, who, though a gentlemen and a scholar, was sadly addicted to punning; but they were all of Saint John’s College, and therefore punsters by prescription. This bad pun let out a good deal of punning; when it ceased to flow, the original subject was renewed.
“Will the Trinity boat beat us next month? They have a choice crew, all in capital condition, and heavy men. O’Mack is the only twelve stone man here,” (all gownsmen, you know, are men, however boyish in years and appearance), “and Tyd is such a little fellow!”
“I’m five feet seven,” replied he, rather snappishly; “and I can tell you that the mean height of a man’s stature is but five feet four. (Murmurs of dissent.) O’Mack is about ten inches above the standard; but I’ll back a man of my own height (drawing himself up majestically) against him for walking, jumping, running, fighting, wrestling, swimming, throwing a bar, or rowing a long distance—if he have my breadth of chest and shoulders, and such an arm as this,” displaying a limb as hard and muscular as that of a blacksmith. By his own estimate he was of the perfect size and form.
“In wrestling nimble, and in running swift;
Well made to strike, to leap, to throw, to lift.”
His vanity, however, though quizzed unmercifully, was not humiliated by any detected failure in his bodily proportions, which he submitted to measurement. The circumference of his arm and wrist was considerable—the whole limb and his chest brawny, hirsute, and muscular.
“I’m not afraid of Trinity,” shouted he loudly, if not musically. “Sumamus longum haustum et fortem haustum, et haustum Omne simul, as Lord Dufferin said at the Norwegian Symposium, and we shall bump them.”
At the spirited Latin watchword, our Cantabs commenced a chorus, “Omne simul, omne simul,” etc, etc, which Tyd himself had set to an old Welsh tune of the Bardic days. The effect was thrilling—the coxswain, both sonorously and with a correct ear, singing, “Omne simul, omne simul,” and beating time with his feet against the stretcher, while the rowers, arms and lungs and all, pulled and chorused sympathetically.
This sport lasted about half an hour, and then the question was again mooted, “What name shall we give to the boat?”
Green, the steersman, put the question: “Those who vote for the Rose will say ay—three ays; those who vote for the Shamrock—one; those who vote for the Leek—one.”