screw loose with the crew."

At this very instant, the smoke of the pistol was seen to puff out from
the island, and Hardie rose to his feet. "They are off!" cried he to the
ladies, and after first putting his palms together with a hypocritical
look of apology, he laid one hand on an old barge that was drawn up
ashore, and sprang like a mountain goat on to the bow, lighting on the
very gunwale. The position was not tenable an instant, but he extended
one foot very nimbly and boldly, and planted it on the other gunwale; and
there he was in a moment, headache and all, in an attitude as large and
inspired as the boldest gesture antiquity has committed to marble--he had
even the advantage in stature over most of the sculptured forms of
Greece. But a double opera-glass at his eye "spoiled the lot," as Mr.
Punch says.

I am not to repeat the particulars of a distant race coming nearer and
nearer. The main features are always the same; only this time it was more
exciting to our fair friends, on account of Edward's high stake in it.
And then their grateful though refractory patient, an authority in their
eyes, indeed all but a river-god, stood poised in air, and in excited
whispers interpreted each distant and unintelligible feature down to
them:

"Cambridge was off quickest."

"But not much."


"Anybody's race at present, madam."