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Rh was obviously a person of greater driving power.

Blanchard offered an explanation when Edward asked him about it.

“Sheldon was the best oar in the boat and pulled harder than anybody else in the race,  so I guess the fellows thought he deserved  the captaincy,” said Blanchard. “Besides, he’s more generally popular than Harry Durant; I guess Harry’s soreness over the football election hurt him when it came to electing a crew captain.”

If it had not been for Mr. Burns, the gymnasium instructor, who gave them some  patient coaching, the Pythian crew candidates  would have been rather neglected. On the crowded days Sheldon seemed both bewildered and indifferent; he would pick out six  or eight of the biggest fellows and say. “Come on; fall in;” and with them he would do chest-weights and row on the machines,  leaving all the others to their own devices.

It was quite a different method that Cole, the captain of the Corinthians, pursued. Cole