As they left the dock the Chadwick’s people cheered with delight at their appearance and shouted encouragement, while the remaining youngsters fired salutes with a small cannon, which added to the uproar as well as increased the excitement of the moment by its likelihood to explode. At the Atlantic House dock, also, the excitement was at fever heat. Clad in white flannel suits and white duck yachting-caps with gilt buttons, the revenue officers strolled up and down the pier with an air of cool and determined purpose such as Decatur may have worn as he paced the deck of his man-of-war and scanned the horizon for Algerine pirates. The stars and stripes floated bravely from the peaks of the three cat-boats, soon to leap in pursuit of the pirate craft which were conspicuously making for the starting-point at the island. At half-past three the judge’s steam-launch, the _Gracie_, made for the middle of the river, carrying two representatives from both houses and a dozen undergraduates from different colleges, who had chartered the boat for the purpose of following the race and seeing at close quarters all that was to be seen. They enlivened the occasion by courteously and impartially giving the especial yell of each college of which there was a representative present, whether they knew him or not, or whether he happened to be an undergraduate, a professor, or an alumnus. Lest some one might inadvertently be overlooked, they continued to yell throughout the course of the afternoon, giving, in time, the shibboleth of every known institution of learning. [Illustration: “Which do I think is going to win?” said the veteran boat-builder of Manasquan.] “Which do I think is going to win?” said the veteran boat-builder of Manasquan to the inquiring group around his boat-house. “Well, I wouldn’t like to say. You see, I built every one of those boats that sails to-day, and every time I make a boat I make it better than the last one. Now, the Chadwick boats I built near five years ago, and the Atlantic House boats I built last summer, and I’ve learned a good deal in five years.” “So you think our side will win?” eagerly interrupted an Atlantic House boarder. “Well, I didn’t say so, did I?” inquired the veteran, with crushing slowness of speech. “I didn’t say so. For though these boats the Chadwick’s boys have is five years old, they’re good boats still; and those boys know every trick and turn of ’em--and they know every current and sand-bar just as though it was marked with a piece of chalk. So if the Atlantic folks win, it’ll be because they’ve got the best boats; and if the Chadwick boys win, they’ll win because they’re better sailors.” In the fashion of all first-class aquatic contests, it was fully half an hour after the time appointed for the race to begin before the first pirate boat left the island.