the top of his voice.
They were almost abreast of him now, and laughing themselves, for the
race had become a farce.

"Come on! Keep it up!" he shouted. "You can go around it while it's
sailing just as good as if it were standing still! The race kind of
stretches out like an elastic--it's an extensible race. Keep it up!
Keep it up!"

"Don't," moaned Townsend from his place on the ground. "This is too
much----"

"It isn't enough!" Pee-wee shouted. "The race is better because it's
longer--it stretches out--it's an extensible race--I invented it----"

"What on earth is the cause of it?" laughed one of the girls.

"Extra--extra--ex--ex--ex--extra high tide caused by the r--r--rain,"
shrieked Townsend, hardly able to get the words out. "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. Up the swelling river, out of the voice
range of the hooting throng, farther and still farther from the madding
crowd, sailed Turning Post Island, alias Merry-go-round Island, alias
Isle of Desserts, alias Alligator Isle, alias The Earthly Paradise.