[Illustration: BAD ROWING.]
"_Oars!_" said Marco, "OARS!"
What Marco meant by _oars_ they did not know, so they paid no
attention to the command, but some stopped rowing in despair, while
others kept on, banging the blades of the oars against one another,
and plashing the water, but produced no effect whatever in respect to
propelling the boat. In the mean time the air was filled with shouts
of laughter and loud vociferations.
"_Oars!_" exclaimed Marco again, with the voice of a colonel at
the head of his regiment. "_Oars!_ Why don't you stop when I say
_Oars_?"
The boys began to stop, shouting to one another, "Stop!" "Stop!" In a
few minutes all was still again. The boys began to take their oars in
and one of them rose and said,
"Poh! this is all nonsense. You can't do any thing with oars. I'd
rather have one good paddle than all the oars in New York."
In fact, Marco himself began to despair. He uttered some impatient
exclamations, and tried to paddle the boat toward the shore. But he
found he was almost as awkward in managing a paddle, as the other boys
were in working oars. He succeeded, however, at last, in getting the
boat to the shore, and then he told the boys that they might as well
get out, for they could not do any thing at all about rowing.
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