Then, under the hearth, there was a sound of scraping and grating, then a rushing noise, and then George saw--two enormous rats! Loud and long laughed my master to himself at the discovery.

What cared _he_ for rats?
He pulled his chair back to the table, and buried himself in his book for the next three hours, until his lamp began to burn low, and the letters on the pages grew blurred and dim, and the rats had scuffled back by the way they came, and my flagging hands pointed to four o'clock.
Then George Reader, after kneeling in silent prayer, went to bed.
-- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Note 1.

At the college races at Cambridge the boats start one behind the other at fixed distances, and any boat overtaking and "bumping" the one in front of it moves up a place nearer to the "Head of the River.".