This spirit of hostility and its past history were explained to the new arrival at Chadwick’s by young Teddy Carter, as the two sat under the willow tree watching a game of tennis. The new arrival had just expressed his surprise at the earnest desire manifest on the part of the entire Chadwick establishment to defeat the Atlantic House people in the great race which was to occur on the day following.
“Well, you see, sir,” said Teddy, “considerable depends on this race. As it is now, we stand about even. The Atlantic House beat us playing base-ball,—though they had to get the waiters to help them,—and we beat them at tennis. Our house is great on tennis. Then we had a boat race, and our boat won. They claimed it wasn’t a fair race, because their best boat was stuck on the sand-bar, and so we agreed to sail it over again. The second time the wind gave out, and all the boats had to be poled home. The Atlantic House boat was poled in first, and her crew claimed the race. Wasn’t it silly of them? Why, Charley Prescott told them, if they’d only said it was to be a poling match, he’d have entered a mud-scow and left his sail-boat at the dock!”
“And so you are going to race again to-morrow?” asked the new arrival.
“Well, it isn’t exactly a race,” explained Teddy. “It’s a game we boys have invented. We call it ‘Pirates and Smugglers.’ It’s something like tag, only we play it on the water, in boats. We divide boats and boys up into two sides; half of them are pirates or smugglers, and half of them are revenue officers or man-o’-war’s-men. The ‘Pirate’s Lair’ is at the island, and our dock is ‘Cuba.’ That’s where the smugglers run in for cargoes of cigars and brandy. Mr. Moore gives us his empty cigar boxes, and Miss Sherrill (the lady who’s down here for her health) let us have all the empty Apollinaris bottles. We fill the bottles with water colored with crushed blackberries, and that answers for brandy.
“The revenue officers are stationed at Annapolis (that’s the Atlantic House dock), and when they see a pirate start from the island, or from our dock, they sail after him. If they can touch him with the bow of their boat, or if one of their men can board him, that counts one for the revenue officers; and they take down his sail and the pirate captain gives up his tiller as a sign of surrender.
“Then they tow him back to Annapolis, where they keep him a prisoner until he is exchanged. But if the pirate can dodge the Custom House boat, and get to the place he started for, without being caught, that counts one for him.”
“Very interesting, indeed,” said the new arrival; “but suppose the pirate won’t be captured or give up his tiller, what then?”
“Oh, well, in that case,” said Teddy, reflectively, “they’d cut his sheet-rope, or splash water on him, or hit him with an oar, or something. But he generally gives right up. Now to-morrow the Atlantic House boys are to be the revenue officers and we are to be the pirates. They have been watching us as we played the game, all summer, and they think they understand it well enough to capture our boats without any trouble at all.”
“And what do you think?” asked the new arrival.
“Well, I can’t say, certainly. They have faster boats than ours, but they don’t know how to sail them. If we had their boats, or if they knew as much about the river as we do, it would be easy enough to name the winners. But as it is, it’s about even.”