In consideration of not objecting to an occasional licking, he was permitted to be as impudent and familiar as he pleased to the young gentlemen in whose service he laboured.

Being a professional waterman, he considered it his right to patronise everybody.

Even old Wyndham last season had received most fatherly encouragement from this irreverent youngster, while any one who could make no pretensions to skill with the oars was simply at his mercy.
This being so, Riddell had made up his mind for a trying time of it, and was not disappointed.
"What! so you're a-goin' in for scullin' then ?" demanded the young waterman as the boat put off.
"Yes; I want to try my hand," said the captain.
"_You'll_ never do no good at it, I can tell yer, before yer begins," said the boy.
So it seemed.

What with inexperience of the sculls, and nervousness under the eye of this ruthless young critic, and uneasiness as to the outcome of this strange interview, Riddell made a very bad performance.
"Ya-ow! I thought it would come to that!" jeered Tom when, after a few strokes, the captain got his sculls hopelessly feathered under water and could not get them up again.

"There you are! That comes of diggin'! Always the way with you chaps!" "Suppose, instead of going on like that," said Riddell, getting up the blades of his sculls with a huge effort, "you show me the way to do it properly!" "What's the use of showing you?
You could never learn, I can see it by the looks of you!" After this particularly complimentary speech Riddell rowed ploddingly on for a little distance, Tom whistling shrilly in the stern all the way in a manner most discouraging for conversation.
But Riddell was determined, come what would, he would broach the unpleasant subject.