"This is the cli--cli--climax of Eas--Eas--Easter vac--c--c--c--c--_cation_!" Amid screams and catcalls from the shore an official launch came chugging up the course.

By that time the two canoeists had given themselves up to laughter and sat shaking as their canoes drifted.
Only the island continued merrily upon the flood tide.
"Called off ?" somebody called from the shore.
"Certainly it's called off," said the official in the launch.

"This was supposed to be a race, not a game of tag." "_Come on_! _Come on_!" screamed Pee-wee from the departing isle.
"Hurrah for Bridgeboro High! Come on, you can go around us! If a man can--listen, I've got a dandy argument--if a man can shoot a bird on the wing a race like that is just as good--you can encircle an island on the wing too! _Come on_! _Come on_! It's a new kind of a race! A lot of girls paid ten cents to see it! Come on, go around us!" "Oh, _gracious, goodness_, we've had our money's worth," moaned one of the girls; "we're not complaining." "It's like a movie play," screamed another.
"It's a very move--m--moving drama," stammered Townsend.
"And all for ten cents," said one of the girls.
"They're not coming!" Pee-wee shouted.

"We won the race! We weren't in it but we won it anyway.

That feller in the launch is crazy! It was a chase and a race all in one--it was a chase race--I invented it and he went and spoiled it all." Time and tide wait for no man.