“No; they’ve ruled the tubs out this time; and we should send anything else to the bottom.”

Mrs. Pasmer perceived that he was joking, but also that they were not of the crew; and she said that if that was the case the should not go.

“Oh, don’t let that keep you away!  Aren’t you going?  I hoped you were going,” continued the young man, speaking with his eyes on Mrs. Pasmer, but with his mind, as she could see by his eyes, on her daughter.

“No, no.”

“Oh, do go, Mrs. Pasmer!” he urged:  “I wish you’d go along to chaperon us.”

Mrs. Pasmer accepted the notion with amusement.  “I should think you might look after each other.  At any rate, I think I must trust you to Mr. Boardman this time.”

“Yes; but he’s going on business,” persisted Mavering, as if for the pleasure he found in fencing with the air, “and he can’t look after me.”

“On business?” said Mrs. Pasmer, dropping her outspread fan on her lap, incredulously.

“Yes; he’s going into journalism—­he’s gone into it,” laughed Mavering; “and he’s going down to report the race for the ’Events’.”

“Really!” asked Mrs. Pasmer, with a glance at Boardman, whose droll embarrassment did not contradict his friend’s words.  “How splendid!” she cried.  “I had, heard that a great many Harvard men were taking up journalism.  I’m so glad of it!  It will do everything to elevate its tone.”

Boardman seemed to suffer under these expectations a little, and he stole a glance of comical menace at his friend.

“Yes,” said Mavering; “you’ll see a very different tone about the fires, and the fights, and the distressing accidents, in the ‘Events’ after this.”

“What does he mean?” she asked Boardman, giving him unavoidably the advantage of the caressing manner which was in her mind for Mavering.

“Well, you see,” said Boardman, “we have to begin pretty low down.”

“Oh, but all departments of our press need reforming, don’t they?” she inquired consolingly.  “One hears such shocking things about our papers abroad.  I’m sure that the more Harvard men go into them the better.  And how splendid it is to have them going into politics the way they are!  They’re going into politics too, aren’t they?” She looked from one young man to the other with an idea that she was perhaps shooting rather wild, and an amiable willingness to be laughed at if she were.  “Why don’t you go into politics, Mr. Mavering?”

“Well, the fact is—­”

“So many of the young University men do in England,” said Mrs. Pasmer, fortifying her position.

“Well, you see, they haven’t got such a complete machine in England—­”

“Oh yes, that dreadful machine!” sighed Mrs. Pasmer, who had heard of it, but did not know in the least what it was.

“Do you think the Harvard crew will beat this time?” Alice asked of Boardman.

“Well, to tell you the truth—­”