The silence continued till it was broken by--a fish out of water. An
undergraduate in spectacles came mooning along, all out of his element.
It was Mr. Kennet, who used to rise at four every morning to his Plato,
and walk up Shotover Hill every afternoon, wet or dry, to cool his eyes
for his evening work. With what view he deviated to Henley has not yet
been ascertained. He was blind as a bat, and did not care a button about
any earthly boat-race, except the one in the AEneid, even if he could
have seen one. However, nearly all the men of his college went to Henley,
and perhaps some branch, hitherto unexplored, of animal magnetism drew
him after. At any rate, there was his body; and his mind at Oxford and
Athens, and other venerable but irrelevant cities. He brightened at sight
of his doge, and asked him warmly if he had heard the news.
"No: what? Nothing wrong, I hope?"
"Why, two of our men are ploughed; that is all," said Kennet, affecting
with withering irony to undervalue his intelligence.
"Confound it, Kennet, how you frightened me! I was afraid there was some
screw loose with the crew.
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