I had a talk with him and he swore off.

He is not touching tobacco in any form, and I give you my word on that." "That's all I want," said Putnam, quite satisfied.
After this the freshman crew took to practicing nights, and it was said that they worked as no crew of freshies every worked before.

One night they ran up against the regular 'Varsity crew, and gave it a hot pull, but finally seemed to be beaten.
The report of this brush spread abroad, and the men on the regular crew were rather complimentary toward the freshmen.

They said the youngsters worked together in a most surprising way, and it was predicted that they would give their rivals a hard pull.
The sophs were inclined to regard this as a jolly, and they continued confident of winning over the freshmen with the greatest ease..