CAN I TEMPT YOU?"]
* * * * *
THE BOAT-RACE AGAIN.
In June, 1914, I took a house on the Thames, in order to make sure of
a good view of the Boat-Race; then a man threw a bomb at Serajevo and
ruined my plans. But now it is going to happen again. And instead of
fighting with a vast crowd at Hammersmith Bridge I shall simply walk
up into the bathroom and look out of the window. It is wonderful.
Yet meanwhile I have lost some of my illusions about this race. I have
a boat myself; I myself have rowed all over the course in my boat. It
is only ten feet long, but it is very, very heavy. Still, I have rowed
in it all over the course--with ease. Yet people talk as if it was
a marvellous thing for eight men to row a light boat over the same
water. Why is that? It is because the ignorant land-lubber regards
the river Thames as a pond; or else he regards it as a river flowing
always to the sea. He forgets about the tide. The Boat-Race is rowed
_with the tide_; they deliberately choose a moment when the tide is
coming in, and hope nobody will notice; and nobody does notice.
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